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The people of India
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THE PEOPLE OF INDIA
=2!^.^ Z'^JiiS-
,SIH HERBERT ll(i
K= CoIoB a , (
'E MISLEX,
THE
PEOPLE OF INDIA
w
SIR HERBERT RISLEY, K.C.I.E., C.S.I.
DIRECTOR OF ETHNOGRAPHY FOR INDIA, OFFICIER d'aCADEMIE, FRANCE,
CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETIES OF ROME AND BERLIN,
AND OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
SECOND EDITION, EDITED BY
W. CROOKE, B.A.
LATE OF THE INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE
"/« ^ood sooth, 7tiy masters, this is Ho door. Yet is it a little
window, that looketh upon a great world"
WITH 36 ILLUSTRATIONS AND AN ETHNOLOGICAL
MAP OF INDIA
UN31NDABL?
Calcutta & Simla: THACKER, SPINK & CO.
London: W, THACKER & CO., 2, Creed Lane, E.C.
191S
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.
e 7/ /a£
gw
TO
SIR WILLIAM TURNER, K.C.B.
CHIEF AMONG ENGLISH CRANIOLOGISTS
THIS SLIGHT SKETCH OF A
LARGE SUBJECT
IS WITH HIS PERMISSION
RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
In an article on "Magic and Religion" published in the
Quarterly Review of last July, Mr. Edward Clodd complains that
certain observations of mine on the subject of " the impersonal
stage of religion " are hidden away under the " prosaic title " of
the Report on the Census of India, 1901. The charge is just,
and the offence is aggravated by the fact that the Report in
question weighs seven pounds and is cumbered with many
statistics. Mr. Clodd's grievance may, however, perhaps be
thought to justify me in venturing to reprint, in a more handy
form, the less dreary portions of my own contributions to the
Report, with such revision and expansion as seemed to be
called for. Two new chapters have been added. One of these,
Caste in Proverbs and Popular Sayings, is an attempt to give a
much-described people the chance of describing themselves in
their own direct and homely fashion. It is, in fact, a ^^i^^'-ie^^efe
proverbs, selected from the ample material which will be found
in Appendix I, and fitted together into a connected whole with
the minimun^f comment and explanation. In the chapter on
Caste and Nationality I have endeavoured to analyse the causes
and to forecast the prospects of the Indian nationalist movement
of recent years. Being anxious above all things to avoid giving
offence, I submitted the proofs to Mr. Nagendra Nath Ghose,
Fellow of the Calcutta University, and Editor of the Indian
Nation, a sober thinker, who holds that the people of India
"should conceive national unity as their chief aim, and the
realisation of it as their chief duty." * Mr. Ghose gives me the
comforting assurance — " I have discovered no sentiment with
which I am not in agreement."
For the same reason the chapter on Caste and Religion,
which contains a certain amount of new matter, was laid
before my friend Mr. Justice Mookerjee, Vice-Chancellor of
the Calcutta University, one of the most learned, and not the
least orthodox, of living Hindus. Dr. Mookerjee has been
good enough to write to me : " I have very carefully read over
the proof which you so kindly sent me. I have never read
* Hindustan Revieiii, Nov. and Dec. 1904.'
viii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
anything so illuminating on the subject, and I have not come
across any statement to which exception may justly be taken."
I trust, therefore, that it may be recognised, even by those who
dissent from my views, that these delicate subjects have been
approached in a spirit which escapes Darmesteter's telling
criticism " Mais a ces maitres honnfetes manque le don supreme,
le seul qui fasse pardonner les superiorites ecrasantes : la
sympathie."
I am indebted to Rai Bahadur Lala Baij Nath, Judge
of Ghazipur, for the following criticism of my definition of
Hinduism, as it appeared in the Census Report : — "The Census
Commissioner's [definition] would have approached nearest to
the mark, so far as modern Hindu society is concerned, if he
had omitted the word ' two ' both from the sets of ideas and
the conceptions of the world and of life." * The amendment
suggested is gratefully accepted and has been duly carried out.
My thanks are also due to Mr. Justice Sarada Charan-
Mitra, of the Calcutta High Court, for revising the translation
of a notable speech of his quoted in the chapter on Caste and
Marriage, and to Mr, B. A. Gupte, F.Z.S., Assistant Director of
EthnographY. for much assistance in the collection of material
"and the revisioiSa^roofs.
The illustrationsVequire a word of explanation. With the
exception of the frontispiece, which was presented to me some
years ago by one of the persons there depicted, all of them are
taken from the Ethnology of Bengal, by the late Colonel E. T.
Dalton, formerly Commissioner of Chutia Nagpur. The book
is now a rare one, and I am informed that the entire stock was
destroyed by an unfortunate accident some years ago. The
lithographs which it contains represent only two out of the
seven main types traceable in India, and thus fail to cover the
whole of the subject dealt with in the present work. It seemed,
however, to my publishers worth while, and to myself as a
lover of Chutia Nagpur and its people a pious duty, to preserve
from oblivion these fine pictures, one of which, the study of
Juang female attire by my friend the late Mr. Tosco Peppe, is,
I believe, absolutely unique. I trust that Sir Benjamin Simpson,
the sole survivor of the artists who assisted Colonel Dalton,
will recognise the excellence of our intentions and will pardon
the shortcomings of the process employed.
H. H. RISLEY.
* Hinduism: Ancient and Modern. New Edition, 1905, p. 6.
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
Soon after the death of her husband, Lady Risley entrusted to
me a large collection of papers connected with Anthropology,
which he had brought with him from India. He intended to
prepare new editions of the present work and of his Tribes
and Castes of Bengal, and to write an account of the people of
Eastern Bengal. But his health failed soon after his retirement
from the Indian Civil Service, and he was unable to do any
work in connection with these projects. It was therefore
decided to issue a memorial edition of The People of India,
the preparation of which was entrusted to me. On examining
his papers nothing in the shape of notes for this revised edition
could be discovered. Under these circumstances it wasjiaiaded»
to reprint the text as it stood in the first jeditlon, which was
issued in limited numbers and had fallen out of print soon after
publication. Accordingly, no attempt has been made to revise
the text, except by bringing the statistics up to date, securing
uniformity in the transliteration of vernacular terms, and adding,
in square brackets, some notes and references mainly collected
from the Reports of the Census of India and its Provinces which
was carried out in 191 1 by Mr. E. A. Gait, C.S.I., CLE. The
publication of this edition has therefore been postponed until
the arrival in England of a full set of the Census Reports.
I have also added an Introduction containing a short
memoir of Sir H. Risley, confined to his official life and his
work in Anthropology, with some remarks on questions
connected with this book which have been raised since its
publication, and a bibliography of his Anthropological writings,
so far as I have been able to trace them.
The illustrations of the original edition consisted of repro-
ductions from the late Colonel E. T. Dalton's Descriptive
Ethnology of Bengal. These were confined to the tribes of
Bengal and Assam. In order to render the book more
interesting and useful to Anthropologists, in the present
edition these have been supplemented by a collection of
X PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
photographs, some of which were procured by the publishers
in India, and a few others for which I am indebted to Messrs.
E. Thurston, E. H. Mann, Major Nicolas, B. A. Gupte, and
Pandit Giraj Kishor Dutt, Rai Bahadur.
In preparing this edition I beg to acknowledge assistance
from Messrs. J. Kennedy and V. A. Smith, late of the Indian
Civil Service. The memoir of Sir H. Risley is to a great
extent based on that contributed to Man (vol. xii) by
Mr. J. D. Anderson, supplemented by notes from Mr. Keith
Jopp, the Warden of New College, and the Headmaster of
Winchester College. Mr. B. A. Gupte, who acted as Personal
Assistant to Sir H. Risley while he was Director of Ethno-
graphy for India, has kindly aided in the preparation of the
bibliography of his writings. Miss Ethel E. Risley has
contributed the photograph from which the frontispiece is
taken, and has read the memoir of her brother in proof.
W. CROOKE.
INTRODUCTION
Herbert Hope Risley, only son of Rev. John Holford Risley,
Rector of Akeley, Bucks, and Fanny Elton, his wife, daughter
of John Hope, late of the Bengal Medical Service, was born on
4th January, 1851. He belonged to one of the " Founder's Kin "
families of Winchester. Most of his family, including his
father, were, during the last two or three centuries, educated at
Winchester, which he entered in 1864. He had a distinguished
school career, winning the Goddard Scholarship and the Moore
Stevens Divinity Prize in 1868, and the King's Gold Medal for
the Latin Essay in 1869.
On 15th October, 1869, he entered New College, Oxford;
took a Second Class in the School of Law and Modern History,
Michaelmas Term, 1872, and received his B.A. degree in January,
1873. He had been selected for an appointment in the Civil
Service of India in April, 1871. As the Warden, Rev. W. A.
Spooner, D.D., writes : " This early selection to the Indian Civil
Service partly explains and partly accounts for his comparative
failure in the Schools. His great friends in College were
Mr. Keith Jopp, who also entered the Indian Civil Service, and
Dr. G. B. Longstaff. All three of them, if my memory does not
play me false, were very keen members of the University
Volunteer Corps." Mr. Keith Jopp confirms the accuracy of
the Warden's recollections, and adds that "even then he had
charming manners and great powers of writing."
On reaching India in 1873 Risley had the good fortune to
start his service in the district of Midnapur, part of which
fringes on the plateau of Chota Nagpur, a land of hills and
forests, situated to the south of the Ganges valley, the home of
several interesting tribes whose culture was of a very primitive
type. Here he gained his first opportunity for work in
Anthropology. His interest in the forest tribes continued
during his life, and it was due to his initiative that the late
xii INTRODUCTION
Rev. P. Dehon, S.J., compiled his valuable monograph on the
Oraons.*
In 1869 Sir W. W. Hunter had commenced the Statistical
Survey of India, the results of which were embodied in the
first edition of the Imperial Gazetteer published in 1881.
The survey of the Province of Bengal was undertaken by
Hunter himself, and the interest displayed by Risley in the
anthropology, linguistics, and sociology of India led to his
appointment on the staff of the Survey, as Assistant Director
of Statistics, early in 1875. The volume on the hill districts
of Hazaribagh and Lohardaga was compiled by Risley. His
wide knowledge of rural life and the lucidity of his literary
style displayed in this book marked him out for further
promotion. After little more than three years' service he
began to act as Assistant Secretary to the Government of
Bengal, and in 1879 he officiated as Under Secretary in the
Home Department of the Government of India. " It was at
this period of his career," writes Mr. Anderson, " that he met
and married the accomplished German lady, whose linguistic
attainments aided him in his wide reading on anthropology and
statistical subjects in foreign languages." In 1880 he once more
returned to district work among his old friends the jungle
folk of Chota Nagpur ; and after an intervial again spent in the
Bengal Secretariat, he was placed in charge of an enquiry
into the Ghatwali and other primitive forms of land tenure
in the district of Manbhum.
In 1885 Sir Rivers Thompson, then Lieutenant-Governor
of Bengal, decided that it was advisable to collect detailed
information on the castes, tribes, and sociology of that Province.
Risley was naturally selected as the officer best qualified to
undertake the work. At the beginning of this investigation,
which extended over some years, he had the good fortune to
meet Dr. James Wise, then retired from the Indian Medical
Service, who during ten years' occupancy of the post of Civil
Surgeon of Dacca, had collected much valuable information on
the people of Eastern Bengal. A summary of this was published
privately by him in 1883 under the title of Notes on the Races,
Castes, and Trades of Eastern Bengal. On the sudden death
of Dr. Wise in 1886, his widow made over his papers to Risley
" on the understanding that after testing the data contained in
* " Religion and Customs of the Uraons," Memoirs Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1906,
p. 121 et seq.
INTRODUCTION xiii
them as far as possible in the manner contemplated by Dr. Wise
himself, I should incorporate the results in the ethnographic
volumes of the present work, and by dedicating these volumes
to Dr. Wise, should endeavour to preserve some record,
however imperfect, of the admirable work done by him during
his service in India." *
To complete this work Risley was placed on special duty.
For the description of the jungle tribes of Chota Nagpur and
Assam the materials collected by Colonel E. T. Dalton and
published in 1872 under the title of The Descriptive Ethnology
of Bengal were available. The papers of Dr. Wise were used
for the accounts of the people of Eastern Bengal, and for the
remaining parts of the Province a large staff of correspondents,
including Government officials, missionaries, planters, and
native gentlemen, supplied ample information. The results
of the Ethnographic Survey of Bengal were published in
a preliminary edition in 1891 under the title of The Tribes
and Castes of Bengal, consisting of two volumes of the
" Ethnographical Glossary," and two of " Anthropometric Data,"
the latter prepared under the advice of Sir W. H. Flower,
Director of the Natural History Museum, South Kensington,
and Sir W. Turner, the eminent Edinburgh anthropologist.
The Introductory Essay prefixed to this work was the first
attempt to apply, in a systematic way, the methods of
anthropometry to the analysis of the people of an Indian
Province. The most important result of the inquiry was that
there appears to be, from the physical point of view, no difference
between the so-called " Dravidian " and " Kolarian " races
occupying the hill country to the south of Bengal. The newer
learning has now identified the Austro -Asiatic group of
languages, with Munda as one of its sub-branches. With this
new position Risley was not spared to deal.
Among other anthropological work done during this period
was the Introduction to the Gazetteer of Sikkim published in
1894, and a monograph on "Widow and Infant Marriage,"
which formed the basis of the views expressed on these subjects
in the following pages.
About this time financial difficulties, the result of a
succession of disastrous famines, impeded the prosecution of
the Ethnological Survey of the Indian Empire, and it was not
till the Viceroyalty of Lord Curzon that Risley was appointed
* The Tribes and Castes of Bengal, vol. i., Introductory Essay, p. xv.
xiv INTRODUCTION
Honorary Director of the Survey, the general principles of
which were described in his paper entitled "The Study of
Ethnology in India."* "What he thought of the administra-
tive and political value of ethnological enquiries," writes Mr.
Anderson, "may be gathered from a charming discourse on
' India and Anthropology' delivered to the boys at Winchester
in 1910 [vide Man, vol. x., p. 163 ei seq.^, in which he paid a
kindly tribute to his friend Dr. Jackson. He quoted, too, the
words of another old friend, Sir Bamfylde Fuller, that ' nothing
wins the regard of an Indian so easily as a knowledge of facts
connected with his religion, his prejudices, or his habits. We
do but little to secure that our officers are equipped with these
passports to popular regard.' Thus, in one of the last of his
public utterances. Sir Herbert Risley stated his deliberate
conviction that it is only right 'to teach the anthropology of
India to men of the Indian services.' " This question was again
raised in 1913 by Sir R. Temple in his Presidential Address
delivered before the Anthropological Section at the Birmingham
meeting of the British Association, which attracted much
attention among all those who are interested in the training
of candidates for the Indian Civil Service. An appeal, widely
supported by British anthropologists, has recently been
submitted to the Government, pleading for the encouragement
of anthropological studies in the older Universities, which have
already established flourishing Schools, and for the extension
of these in the more modern Universities and Colleges.
In 1890 Risley served as member and secretary of a
Commission appointed to enquire into the working of the
Indian police. After a brief reversion to district duty he
resumed work in the Secretariats of Bengal and of the Imperial
Governments. The decennial Census of the Empire was fixed
to be carried out in 1901, and in 1899 he was appointed Census
Commissioner. His administrative ability was proved in the
difficult task of organising a competent staff, in consulting with
the Provincial Governments, and in formulating an elaborate
code of regulations which formed the basis on which the
Census of 1901 and that of 191 1 were conducted. The results
of the Census carried out under his charge were reviewed in
an exceptionally interesting report prepared by him with the
assistance of his friend, Mr. E. A. Gait, in which he developed
his views on the origin and classification of the Indian races
* jfourna! Royal Anthropulogical Institute, vol. xx., i8gi, p. 235 etseq.
INTRODUCTION xv
largely on the basis of anthropometry. Portions of this report,
with some additions and revision, were republished in 1908
under the title of The People of India.
After the completion of this work he was appointed Home
Secretary in Lord Curzon's administration, and in 1909 he
became a temporary member of the Council of the Governor-
General. When, in the viceroyalty of Lord Minto, the arduous
and delicate task of reforming and extending the Provincial
Councils, in order to satisfy the aspirations of the more advanced
section of the people, was undertaken, the heaviest portion of
the work was entrusted to Risley, and the strain of these duties
on a constitution which at no time was robust doubtless laid
the seeds of the fatal disease which was soon to end his life.
In these, the final years of his service in India, besides his
official duties, he took his share in various activities. He was
Director of the Ethnological Survey, President on three
occasions of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, a Trustee of the
Indian Museum, Secretary of the Queen Victoria Memorial
Committee, and a member of the Committee of Lady DufFerin's
Fund for providing medical and surgical aid for native women.
His work on Constitutional Reform was so important that his
service was extended for two years on the expiry of thirty-five
years, the maximum term of office prescribed for members of
the Indian Civil Service.
At a farewell dinner given in his honour at Calcutta on
7th February, 1910, by Lord and Lady Minto, the Viceroy
remarked that "he did not know what he should have done
without his assistance in the Reforms scheme," and he paid the
highest tribute to his literary abilities, his foresight and industry,
which had all been of invaluable assistance to the Government
of India. The country could ill afford to spare so able a servant,
and he wished him all success in the future.
In February, 1910, he resigned the service. Soon after his
arrival in England he was appointed to succeed Sir C. J. Lyall
as Permanent Secretary in the India Office. He was able
to do little more than take charge of his new duties when
his health finally broke down, and he fell the victim to a
fatal and painful disease, borne with unflinching courage
and with characteristic and touching consideration for those
who strove to alleviate his sufferings. He died at Wimbledon
on 30th September, 191 1, leaving a widow, a son, now an
officer in the Indian army, and a daughter to mourn his
loss.
xvi INTRODUCTION
In the course of a long Indian career he worthily maintained
the traditions of the service to which he belonged. He proved
that the study of the native races may be conducted side by
side with the most engrossing public work, and forms one of
the best means of relaxation amidst its labours and anxieties.
He showed a wide sympathy with all classes of the people, and
it was his privilege at the close of his official career to be
associated with measures calculated to improve the relations
of its subjects with the British Government. Some of the
native journals, in their sympathetic comments on his career,
did not fail to recall that one of the services to the people with
which his name was associated was a scheme for the sale
through the agency of the Post Office of cheap packets of
quinine among the malaria-stricken people of the Ganges Delta.
His services as an administrator and an anthropologist were
recognised by the bestowal of the Order of Companion of the
Star of India in 1904 and the Knighthood of the Order of the
Indian Empire in 1907. He was elected Ofificier d'Academie
Frangaise and corresponding member of the Anthropological
Societies of Berlin and Rome. One of his last literary tasks
was to prepare the Annual Address as President of the Royal
Anthropological Institute, which illness prevented him from
delivering in person.
The value of Risley's work on the ethnology of India has
been so widely recognised that it is unnecessary to discuss it in
detail. He was a pioneer in the application of scientific methods
to the classification of the races of India; and, like all pioneer
work, some of his conclusions are open to criticism in the light
of later researches. The words of Sir J. G. Frazer in reference
to the study of comparative religion may well apply to Indian
ethnology : " In this as in other branches of study it is the fate
of theories to be washed away like children's castles of sand
by the rising tide of knowledge."* The problems of Indian
ethnology are still so obscure and in many directions our
knowledge is so imperfect, that in the following pages no
attempt will be made to express a dogmatic opinion upon
them. All that it is proposed to do is to indicate some of the
questions treated in this work which have formed the subject
of controversy since the first edition was issued.
First, one of the main assumptions underlying his attempt
to classify the races of India on the basis of anthropometry is
* The Golden Bough, 3rd ed., Part vii,, vol. i., Preface, p. xi.
INTRODUCTION xvii
that "nowhere else in the world do we find the population of a
large continent broken up into an infinite number of mutually
exclusive aggregates, the members of which are forbidden by an
inexorable social law to marry outside the group to which they
belong. ... In this respect India presents a remarkable contrast
to most other parts of the world, where anthropometry has to
confess itself hindered, if not baffled, by the constant inter-
mixture of types obscuring and confusing the data ascertained
by measurements." *
In reply to this it has been urged that Risley has exaggerated
the isolation of the present grouping of the people ; that caste,
in its modern, rigid form, is of comparatively recent origin.
The older custom, for instance, recognised the possibility of a
Kshatriya becoming a Brahman, or vice versd; and although
a man was supposed to take his first wife from his own class,
there was no binding rule to this effect, while in any case he
was free to take a second wife from a lower class.f Similar
laxities of practice prevail at the present time among certain
communities in the Himalayan districts of the Panjab. | The
long periods of anarchy through which most parts of India
have passed, some notorious facts of modern peasant life — the
pressure of hypergamy which produces a scarcity of brides in
the higher groups and leads to the purchase of low-born girls,
the weakness of moral control among certain classes § — produce
miscegenation. Caste, again, has been habitually modified by
the action of the Rajas, who claimed the right of promoting and
degrading members of the various castes. The process of
amalgamation of caste and tribal groups is specially observable
in the case of the forest tribes when they come in contact with
Hinduism. Each of them shows a ragged fringe in which the more
primitive type is found intermingled with the more civilised
race. In the case of certain areas, like Burma, Kashmir, Gujarat,
the existing population represents a mixture of various races
which have amalgamated within the historical period. ||
* Infra, p. 25 el seg.
t E. A. Gait, in Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. iii., 1910, p. 234.
% H. A. Rose, Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North- West Frontier
Province, vol. ii., 191 1, pp. 130, 256 et seg., 460 note : Census Report, Punjab, igii, Vol. i.,
p. 270.
§ Census Report, Punjab, 191 1, vol. i., p. 293, United Provinces, 191 1, vol. i., p. 327
et seq.
II General Indefinite Characteristics of the Tribes of Burma, 1906, p. vi. ; Census Report,
Kashmir, 1911, vol. i., p. 204; Sir G. Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India, vol. ix.,
part ii., 1908, p. 324,
R, PI b
xviii INTRODUCTION
It is impossible here to discuss at length the wide and
difficult question of the value of anthropometry as a test of
race, on which controversy is still active. " Of late years," says
Mr. O'Malley, "anthropometry as a test of race has begun to
fall out of favour." * Perhaps it may be safer to say that
measurements collected in a haphazard fashion among the
larger composite groups, like Brahmans, Rajputs, Nayars, or
Vellalas, which include all sorts and conditions of men, must
remain of doubtful value, unless it is certain that the individuals
who have been examined belong to sub-castes or families which
have not been contaminated by union with outsiders. Mr. Gait,
discussing the variability of caste to which reference has been
made, writes : " It is desirable to point out the practical bearing
on the point at issue of the facts which have been adduced in
the preceding paragraphs regarding caste changes. Those
which I have described as discontinuous, whereby a whole
community raises its social rank, though disturbing the correla-
tion between caste and status which Risley alleged to exist,
have in themselves no effect on the racial composition of the
community, unless in time the upstarts succeed in intermarrying
with some other social group. But the changes arising from
the transfer of individuals or groups from one caste to another
would clearly disturb the homogeneity of the castes receiving
them. This would be the case, for instance, when the men are
in the habit of taking wives from other castes of lower status.
Still more would it be the case amongst the functional castes.
If it be conceded that such castes have received successive
accretions of groups from outside, it follows that the main
caste is seldom a homogeneous body, and that measurements
taken, as they have almost invariably been, without regard to
the sub-caste, cannot be expected to give uniform results. The
individual sub-castes are more likely to consist of persons
having a common origin, but this also is by no means an
invariable rule. The processes of fission and fusion have no
doubt been in operation from the earliest times ; and the
sub-castes of to-day, though more uniform in type than the
castes of which they form part, were probably in their time
formed out of different groups, which in course of time have
become so closely intermingled that all traces of the original
distinctions have disappeared." f
♦ Census Report, Bengal, 191 1, vol. i., p. 517.
t Census Report, India, igii, vol. i., p. 381 ; cf. Man, xiv., 1914, p. 207.
INTRODUCTION xix
Secondly, it has been urged that Risley devoted too little
attention to the influence of environment in modifying bodily
structure. The views of Professor Franz Boas, who claims to
have proved that the head-forms of immigrants to the United
States rapidly become modified in their environment, have not
been universally accepted. * But the stress laid on these
influences by Professor W. Ridgeway deserve more attention
than they have hitherto received in India.f It can hardly, it
is urged, be possible that the differences of climate, soil, and
food supplies throughout the Indian Peninsula fail to exert
their influence 'on the physical characteristics of the population.
The contrast between the deltas of the great rivers and regions
like the Panjab, the Deccan, or the forest and hill tractSj
is obvious. Differences in the food supply equally deserve
investigation, when we compare the races of Bengal or Madras,
who mainly subsist on rice, with the people of the Deccan
whose staple food is . millet, the Panjabi who eats wheat or
barley, the jungle-dwellers who largely use the wild products
of the forest.
Thirdly, since this book was written, the problem of the
Aryan and the Dravidian has assumed new forms. It has been
urged that it is difficult to maintain Risley's theory of a move-
ment of Aryan tribes into the Panjab who retained their
original Indo-Aryan type, in spite of the fact that this province
has been the scene of continuous foreign immigration — Iranian,
Scythian, Hun, Mongol, Persian. Again, writers of the South
Indian school maintain the predominance of the Dravidian
element in the present population, and regard the distinction
between the Aryan and their Dasyu predecessors as one of
cult and not of race, t
Fourthly, as regards the Dravidian type, the researches of
Mr. E. Thurston show that it is far from uniform ; § and
Risley's extension of this term to include not only the hill
tribes of Central India but much of the menial population of
the northern plains, is disputed in view of recent work in
linguistics which proves that the Mon- Khmer form of speech
stretches right across the centre of continental India, and at
one time covered the greater part of Further India and the
* The American Anthropologist, N.S., vol. xiv., No. 3, July-September, 1912, p. naetseq. ;
Man, xiv., 1914, p. 206 et seq.
t Report, British Association, igoj, p. 832 et seq.
% P. T. Srinivas Iyengar, Life in Ancient India in the Age of the Mantras, 1912, p. 9 et seq.
§ The Castes and Tribes of Southern India, 1909, vol. i., Introduction, p. xxxvi. et seq.
XX INTRODUCTION
present Province of Assam.* This widespread extension of
Mon-Khmer speech may be assumed to imply a westward
movement of these races. This, and not a Dravidian element,
survives in the menial population of the northern plains.
Fifthly, the views expressed 'in this work on the origin of
the Rajputs, Jats, and Marathas have met with vigorous criti-
cism. Accepting the fact that the people of Central Asia are
of an uniform brachycephalic type, Risley argued that it was
impossible to suppose that the long-headed Rajputs and Jats
could be descended from races entering India from that region.
It is now believed by many scholars that the term Scythian or
Hun does not represent homogeneous ethnical types; that as
the Greeks and Romans confounded Gauls with Germans — and
to most Greeks a Scythian was any barbarian from the east of
Europe,— so it is held to be possible that the Hindus termed
any savage enemy who crossed the Himalaya a Saka or a
Huna, migrants from a region which displays many different
physical types.f It is now generally admitted that these Hun
princes rapidly became Hinduised, and that from one of their
clans, the Gurjara, the present Rajputs were largely, if not
wholly, derived. |
As regards the Marathas, Risley suggested that they origi-
nated in bodies of Scythians, driven from the grazing-grounds
of the Western Panjab towards the south, where they inter-
mingled with the Dravidian type. There seems to be, however,
no historical, or even traditional, evidence of a Scythian
migration into the Deccan. The IMarathas are closely con-
nected with a mixed race of cultivators, extending over a wide
area from the Deccan to the valley of the Ganges, and known
as Kunbi or Kurmi. The Maratha group has now succeeded in
asserting its superiority over its humbler kinsfolk, with whom
they practise hypergamy, that is to say, they take brides from
the latter, while the higher Maratha families refuse to give
their daughters to Kunbi husbands. § In some places these
higher-class Marathas have succeeded in acquiring the right
of connubium with certain Rajput septs; but the fact that their
* Census Report, India, 1901, vol. i., p. 257 et seg. ; 191 1, vol. i., p. 322 et seq.
t E. H. Minns, Scythians and Greeks, 1913, p. 35 ; T. A. Joyce, jfournal Royal Anthropo-
logical Institute, vol. xlii, 1912, p. 450 et seq.
% v. A. Smith, Early History of India, 3rd edit., 1914, pp. 322, 407 et seq. ; Journal
Royal Asiatic Society, January-April, 1909 ; D. R. Bhandarkar, Journal Asiatic Society,
Bengal, 1909, p. 167 et seq,
§ Census Report, Central Provinces, 191 1, vol. i., p. 135 ; Ethnographic Survey, Central
Provinces, vol. ix., 191 1, p. 123 et seq.
INTRODUCTION xxi
tribal organisation retains the totemistic form connects them
with the pre-Aryan people. The JDrachycephalic form of skull
which is said to prevail in parts of the Deccan was the basis
of Risley's theory. But this is probably not the result of
Scythian migration, but of some early tribal movement,
perhaps by sea or along the coast route.*
Had Risley lived to revise this work he would certainly
have considered these and other criticisms. It cannot be too
clearly stated that on many or most of these problems no
complete certainty has yet been attained. Much further in-
vestigation, more extended and more careful collection of
anthropometric data, will be needed before the study of the
ethnology of India can be placed on a scientific basis. The
great value of Risley's work lies in the fact that he opened out
fresh fields of enquiry, and gave a new impulse to the study of
man in India.
* W. Crooke, " Rajputs and Mahrattas," Journal Royal Anthropological Institute,
vol. xi., 1910, p. 46 et seq.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE PHYSICAL TYPES
Ethnic isolation of India
External factors
Internal factors .
The race basis of Indian society
The data of Ethnology
Language and race
Indefinite physical characters
Definite physical characters
The data now available
Method of treatment adopted
Craniometry and Anthropometry
Anthropometry in India
General classification of mankind
Their application to India
Conditions favourable to anthropometry
Shape of the head ...
Its value as a test of race
Shape of the head in India .
Shape of the nose : the nasal index
Correspondence with social groupings
Shape of face : orbitonasal index
Stature in Europe and India
The seven physical types
Limitations of the scheme
Turko-Iranian type
Indo-Aryan type
Scytho-Dravidian type
Aryo-Dravidian type .
Mongolo-Dra vidian type
Mongoloid type .
Dravidian type .
Origins of types .
Dravidian .
The Indo-Aryan type : its non-Indian origin
the three primary types
PAGE
I
3
4
S
6
7
13
i6
17
i8
19
20
22
25
25
26
26
27
28
28
30
31
■32
34
35
37
38
39
40
42
44
47
48
48
XXIV
CONTENTS
The mode of its entry into India .
The Aryo-Dravidians : Dr. Hoernle's theory
The Mongolo-Dravidians
The Scytho-Dravidian type : its history
Its possible origin ....
PAGE
5°
SS
56
57
S8
CHAPTER II
SOCIAL TYPES
Social divisions : the tribe .
Types of tribes ....
The Dravidian tribe
The Mongoloid tribe .
The Turko-Iranian tribes : the Afghan type
The Baloch and Brahui type
Marriage in Baluchistan
TKe word " caste "
^Definition of caste
M. Senart's description
An English parallel
Conversion of tribes into castes
Types of Caste ....
(i) Tribal castes
(ii) Functional castes
(iii) Sectarian castes .
(iv) Castes formed by crossing
(v) National castes .
(vi) Castes formed by migration
(vii) Castes formed by changes of customs
Totemisni . . . .
% In Chutia Nagpur
In Orissa
In Bombay
In Central India
In the Central Provinces
In Madras
In Assam
In Burma
Sir J. G. Frazer's theory of totemism
Totemism and Exogamy
Classification of castes .
Method adopted in Census of 1901
Its practical working ,
Its general results
Social precedence of Hindus in Bengal
Social precedence among Muhanimadans
62
62
63
64
64
64
67
67
68
68
69
72
75
75
76
78
82
86
88
92
95
96
98
100
loi
102
102
103
103
105
107
109
III
"3
"4
114
121
CONTENTS
XXV
PAGE
Case of Baluchistan .... .... . 123
Distribution of social groups .... .... 125
Diffused groups , . . 125
Localised groups ............ 126
Muhammadan groups ........ .. 126
CHAPTER III
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS
Proverbs in general : various definitions
Classified as general and particular
Indian proverbs of caste
A village portrait gallery
The Brahman
The Baniya
The Kayasth
Thejat .
The Kunbi or Kurmi .
The Barber
The Goldsmith .
The Potter
The Blacksmith
The Carpenter .
The Oil-presser and dealer in oil
The Tailor
The Washerman
The Fisherman .
The Weaver
The Tanner and Shoemaker
TheDom .
The Mahar and Dhed
The Pariah
The Bhil .
Comparative Proverbs
The Parsi .
The Ascetics
•-/The Muhammadans
In Baluchistan and North- West Frontier Province
In Sind and Gujarat .
In the Punjab
In the United Provinces
In Behar .
In Madras .
Provincial and local Proverbs
General Proverbs
Bibliography of Indian Proverbs
128,
129
130
130
130
131
132
132
133
133
134
134
134
135
135
13s
I3S
136
13b
137
138
,139
139
139
140
142
143
144
144
146
146
147
147
147
148
149
>S2
XXVI
CONTENTS
CHAPTER IV
of sacramental doctrine
marriage
CASTE AND MARRIAGE
Contrasts between India and Europe
Endogamy .....
Exogamy .....
Hypergamy ....
Influence of hypergamy
Female infanticide and exogamy .
Female infanticide and hypergamy
Origin of hypergamy .
Widow and infant marriage .
Prohibition of widow marriage unknown in Vedic times
Causes of its revival
Considerations of property, of spiritual benefit,
Influence of hypergamy
Practice of lower castes
Feeling of the people as to extension of widow
Prevalence of infant marriage
Origin of infant marriage
Mr. Nesfield's theory ....
Antiquity of the custom : its possible causes
The case for infant marriage.
The physiological side of the question
/Abuses in Bengal
Reform in Rajputana .
Rules of the Walterkrit Sabha
As to expenses .
As to betrothal .
As to age .
Legislation : Mr. Ghose's scheme
The Mysore Act
The Baroda Act
Its practical working
Sardar Arjun Singh's Scheme
Indian views of it
Prospects of reform
Difficulties of legislation
The two forms of polyandry
Matriarchal polyandry .
-''rhe ceremonial husband
"' The actual husband
Fraternal polyandry in Tibet and Sikkim
Origin of polyandry
Statistics of marriage .
Among Hindus .
Among Muhammadans
PAGE
154
156
161
163
165
171
173
178
182
i8z
183
183
184
184
18S
186
187
188
189
192
193
194
195
196
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
207
209
209
210
212
212
213
213
CONTENTS
XXVll
CHAPTER V
CASTE AND RELIGION
Stratification of caste ....
Hinduism and Islam ....
Railways and religion .
Fetishism ... . .
Shamanism .....
Animism ......
The best term available
Ideas underlying Animism .
Impersonal elemental forces
Origin of unwoishipped Supreme Beings
Beginnings of religion
The ghost theory
Growth of ancestor-worship
Animism in India ...
Relation between Animism and popular Hinduism
Illustration of Animistic ideas
The- Sri Panchami and Animism .
Sources of Animistic usages
Pantheism .
Transmigration and Karma
Lucian on Karma
Ancient Paganism and modern Hinduism
Adaptiveness of Paganism ....
Weaker than Hinduism in metaphysics and ethics
Stronger in national sentiment
Statistics of religion .....
Increase of Muhammadan^ ....
Influence of conversion ....
Influence of Christianity on the low castes
Causes of its failure with the high castes
Nationalism and the Arya Samaj .
The Sainaj and the Khatris ....
The future of Hinduism • . . .
PAGE
216
217
218
219
220
222
222
223
225
226
227
228
228
231
232
233
235
236
237
238
239
242
243
244
245
246
246
247
249
250
2S3
254
2SS
CHAPTER VI
THE ORIGIN OF CASTE
The origin of caste ...•■••••■•■ 57
The Indian theory ^S^
Its historic elements ....■••••■■■ ^59
Its probable origin . . . . . • • • ■ • ' . 20 1
The Indian and Iranian classes 262
XXVIU
CONTENTS
PAGE
Sir Denzil Ibbetson's theory . . . ' z63
Mr. Nesfield's theory 265
M. Senart's theory z67
Caste not merely occupation. The guilds of Mediseval Europe .... 269
Caste under the Roman Empire . . . . . . 27°
Castes not merely developed tribes . . . .... 272
The genesis of caste : the basis of fact . . 273
The genesis of caste : the influence of fiction 275
Summary .... .... . . . 276
CHAPTER VII
CASTE AND NATIONALITY
European idea that caste is breaking up
278
Founded on misconceptions of facts . ....
279
Not shared by Sir Henry Cotton
282
Whose views are confirmed by statistics and by the best Indian opinion
283
Apparent antagonism of caste and nationality .....
284
Caste and monarchy . ......
28s
Caste and democracy ........•■
286
Caste and nationality . . . . ...
286
The factors of nationality ... . . . . •
287
Community of origin . . . ■ •
288
Language ....... .....
289
Political history ... ........
290
Religion ...
291
Intermarriage . . . . ....••
292
The basis of Indian nationality ..... • •
293
Has it any parallel in history ?.....■••
294
The example of Gaul . . • ......
29s
The example of Japan . . . ....
296
The future of Indian Nationalism .... ....
299
APPENDIXES
I. Proverbs relating to Caste
II. Maps of Castes .
III. Anthropometric Data
IV. Infant Marriage Laws
V. Modern Theories of Caste
VI. KuLiN Polygamy .
VII. The Santal and Munda Tribes
305
334
344
403
407
423
441
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE
Photogravure Portrait of Sir H. H. Risley, K.C.I.E., C.S.I.
Frontispiece.
" Mens Agitat Molem."
Ai end of volume.
I. Khamti Female.
II. Chulikata Woman.
III. I
JMale and Female of the Tain or Digaru Mishmi Tribe.
IV. j
V. BOR Abor Girl.
VI. A Chulikata Mishmi Chief in Full Dress.
VII. )
>Male and Female of the Lower Naga Group.
VIII. j
IX. I
JLePCHAS (SlKKlM).
X. j
XI. I
}LiMBU, Male and Female.
xir. )
XIII. A "Ho" or Kol of Singhbhum.
XIV. 1
XV.
XVI. A Group of Korwas.
Mundas of Chutia Nagpur, Male and Female.
XVII. )
[Oraons.
XVIII. I
XIX. I
HUANG Tribe, Male and Female.
XX. )
XXI. I
JBendkar Tribe, Male and Female,
XXII. )
XXX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE
XXIII. Andamanese at Government House, Port Blair; Negrito type.
XXIV. Subahdar-Major Sher Bahadur Khan, Kaisrani Baloch : Turko-
Iranian type.
XXV. Pandit Duli Chand, Vidyapati Brahman, Agra : Indo-Iranian type.
XXVI. Group of Sutars, carpenters, Bengal : Mongolo-Dravidian type.
XXVII. Group of Mochis, shoemakers, Bengal: Mongolo-Dravidian type.
XXVIII. Group of Kamars, blacksmiths, Bihar: Mongolo-Dravidian type.
XXIX. A KUMBU FROM Nepal: Mongoloid type.
XXX. A Lama Woman from the Tibetan Frontier: Mongoloid type.
XXXI. A Lepcha from Sikkim : Mongoloid type.
XXXII. The Maharani of Nepal, with Attendants: mixed Indo-Aryan and
Mongoloid types.
XXXIII. A Sholaga from the Nilgiri Hills, Madras : pure Dravidian type.
XXXIV. A Kadir, with Clipped Teeth, from the Anaimalai Hills, Madras :
PURE Dravidian type.
XXXV. A Group of Dom Basket -makers from Bihar : mixed Dravidian type.
Map of India showing Divisions of Races.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL
WRITINGS OF SIR H. H. RISLEY
I. — The Statistical Account of Bengal, edited by W. W. Hunter, vol. xvi. :
Districts of Hazaribagh and Lohardaga. London, 1877.
2. — Sikkim and Tibet, "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine," May, 1890.
3. — The Race Basis of Indian Political Movements, " Contemporary
Review," May, 1890.
4. — Hindu Infant Marriage, " Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine,"
December, 1890.
5. — The Study of Ethnology in India, " Journal Anthropological Institute,"
vol. XX., pp. 235 et seq. London, 1890.
6. — The Tribes and Castes of Bengal, 4 vols.: vol. i., ii., "Ethnographic
Glossary" ; iii., iv., "Anthropometric Data." Calcutta, 1891.
7. — Anthropometric Instructions, " Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal," vol,
Ixii., pt. iii., pp. 95 et seq. Calcutta, 1893.
8. — Measurements of Cingalese Moormen and Tamils taken in Ceylon, in
November, 1892, ibid., vol. Ixii., pt. iii., pp. 33 et seq. Calcutta, 1893.
9. — The Gazetteer of Sikkim, Introduction. Calcutta, 1894.
10. — Widow and Infant Marriage. Calcutta, 1894.
II. — Notes on Nepaul, Introduction. Calcutta, 1896.
12. — Presidential Anniversary Address, "Asiatic Society of Bengal, Proceed-
ings," pp. 18 et seq. Calcutta, 1899.
13. — Presidential Anniversary Address, "Asiatic Society of Bengal, Proceed-
ings," pp. 21 et seq. Calcutta, 1900.
14. — Note on some Indian Tatu-Marks, Man, Article No. 74, pp. 97 et seq..
Anthropological Institute. London, 1902.
15. — Extracts from Correspondence relating to the Ori^n of the Gipsies,
ibid.. Article No. 126, pp. 180 et seq.. Anthropological Institute. London,
1902.
16. — Manual of Ethfiography for India. Calcutta, 1903.
17.^ — Report Census of India, 1901, vol. i. in collaboration with E. A. Gait ;
vol. ii., Ethnographic Appendixes. Calcutta, 1903.
18. — Presidential Annual Address, "Asiatic. Society of Bengal, Proceed-
ings," pp. 22 et seq. Calcutta, 1904.
xxxii BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 9. — F. B. Bradley-Birt, The Story of an Indian Upland, Introduction.
London, 1905.
20. — Anthropotnetric Data from Bombay, Burma, Baluchistan, North-
West Borderland. Calcutta, 1906-09.
21. — The People of India. Calcutta, 1908.
22. — The Indian Councils at Work, "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine,"
November, igoo.
23. — Mamial of Anthropometry. Calcutta, 1909.
24. — Presidential Address, " The Methods of Ethnography," " Journal
Royal Anthropological Institute," vol. xli., pp. 8 et seg. London, 1911.
PEOPLE OF INDIA
CHAPTER I
THE PHYSICAL TYPES
o^p^a. re ffKtrfevTa ddKafftrd re -^-xji^ffffo.
II. 1. 156-7.
In respect of those decisive physical features which determine
the course of the national movements of
mankind, India may be described as an Ethnic isolation
, ' . , -^ , , , of India,
irregularly triangular or pear-shaped fort-
ress, protected on two sides by the sea and guarded on the
third by the great bulwark of mountain ranges of which the
Himalaya forms the central and most impregnable portion.*
As these ranges curve westward and southward towards the
Arabian Sea, they are pierced by a number of passes, practi-
cable enough for the march of unopposed armies, but offering
small encouragement to the halting advance of family or tribal
migration. On the east, though the conformation of the barrier
is different, its secluding influence is equally strong. The
ridges which take off from the eastern end of the Himalaya
run for the most part north and south, and tend to direct the
main stream of Mongolian colonization towards the river
* Professor Huxley's comparison of the shape of India to "the diamond on a pack of
cards, having a north angle at Ladakh, a south angle at Cape Comorin, a west angle near
the mouth of the Indus, and an east angle near that of the Ganges," is possibly more
accurate than that adopted in the text. It brings out the great projections of the Punjab
and Kashmir towards the north and the long straight line of frontier which forms the north-
western side of the diamond. On the whole, however, the triangular aspect seems to catch
the eye more as one looks at a map and is thus better suited for descriptive purposes.
Huxley's description is to. be found in the first volume of the Journal of the Ethnological
Society of London. His simile is curiously analogous to the " rhomboid " of Eratosthenes
and other Greek geographers.
R, PI I
2 PEOPLE OF INDIA
basins of Indo-China rather than towards India itself. On
either frontier, where the mountains become less formidable,
other obstacles intervene to bar the way. On the western or
Iranian march the gap between the Suleiman range and the
Arabian Sea is closed by the arid plateaux and thirsty deserts
of Makran ; to the east, the hills of the Turanian border rise
in a succession of waves from a sea of trackless forest. On
either side, again, at any rate within historic times, the belt of
debatable land which veiled a dubious and shifting frontier
has been occupied by races of masterless men knowing, in the
west, no law save that of plunder and vendetta, and in the east,
owning no obligation but the primitive rule that a man must
prove his manhood by taking the stranger's head. Along the
coast line conditions of a different character tended equally to
preclude immigration on a large scale. The succession of
militant traders who landed on the narrow strip of fertile but
malarious country which fringes Western India, found them-
selves cut off from the interior by the forest-clad barrier of the
Western Ghats ; while on the eastern side of the peninsula, the
low coast, harbourless from Cape Comorin to Balasore, is
guarded by dangerous shallows backed by a line of pitiless
surf.*
The country thus isolated by physical and historical
causes comprises three main regions, the Himalaya or abode
of snow ; the Middle Land, or Madhyadesa, as the river plains
of Northern India are called in popular speech; and the
southern table-land of the Deccan with its irregular hill ranges
rising out of undulating plains. Each region possesses ah
ethnic character of its own, and has contributed a distinct
element to the making of the Indian people. The Deccan,
itself one of the most ancient geological formations in the
world, has, since the dawn of history, been the home of the
Dravidians, the oldest of the Indian races. The most recent
of the three regions, the alluvial plains of the north, formed
in pre-historic times the highvi^ay of the Aryan advance into
India, and a large section of its inhabitants still cherishes
the tradition of remote Aryan descent. The influence of the
[* The geographical isolation of India has probably been overestimated (V. A. Smith,
History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, 191 1, p. 377). Commercial intercourse with the
Ti^ris-Kuphrates valley vifas active during the period 700-300 B.C. (J. Kennedy, " The
Early Commerce of Babylon with India," Journal Royal Asiatic Society, 1908, pp. 241-88).
At the close of the ist century A.D., white slaves were imported into Western India, and
the trade in Abyssinian slaves has left evidence of negro blood among some castes in the
same region (Periplus Maris Erythraei, ch. 49 ; Bombay Gazetteer, xi., 1883, p. 433 n.).]
PHYSICAL TYPES 3
Himalaya has been mainly negative. It has served as a barrier
against incursions from the north, but all along the line of the
hills, even among people whose speech is of Rajput origin,
distinct traces may be observed of an intermixture of Mongo-
lian blood.
The Empire of to-day has outgrown its ancient limits, and
now embraces the Indo-Iranian region of Baluchistan and the
Indo-Chinese region of Burma. If we speak of India as a
fortress, these are the outworks which guard its flanks. Nor
is it pressing metaphor too far to describe Baluchistan as
a great natural glacis stretching westward from the crest of
the ramparts of India till it loses itself in the plains of
Kandahar. Its surface is a medley of rocky peaks, narrow
passes, intricate ravines and broken ranges of barren hills,
which bristle at every point with defensive positions. The
people show no trace of Indian culture, and are as rugged as
the land in which they dwell. Arab or Afghan by tradition,
Scythian or Turki by type, but probably a blend of several
stocks, they are fitting guardians of the inhospitable wastes
which separate India from Iran.
The Eastern outpost, Burma, presents the sharpest of con-
trasts to Baluchistan. Broad stretches of alluvial rice-land
fringe the coast strip and run up into the interior, gradually
thinning out as they approach the highlands of earlier forma-
tion through which the great rivers have forced their way.
Cut off from India by a series of forest-clad ranges, which
restricted the interchange of population by land, Burma lay
open on the north, east and south to the inroads of a succession
of Mongolian races who bore rule in turn and combined to
fornTThe'type^whrch we know as Burmese. In the hands of
a maritime power Burma commands the eastern gate of the
Empire, and the growing Indian element in the population
owes its existence to the English control of the sea.
These are the external factors of the problem of Indian
ethnology. The main results of their in-
„ °-' , . 1 A u 1 External Factors.
fluence are obvious enough. An unbroken
chain of snow-clad peaks and of passes only practicable at
certain seasons opposes an effectual obstacle to the fusion
of contrasting types. Ranges of lower elevation, intersected
by frequent valleys, form no bar to hostile incursions and yield
but scanty protection to a weaker race. Long stretches of
fertile plains, traversed by navigable rivers and lying open
to the march of armies, lend themselves to that crushing out
4 PEOPLE OF INDIA
of racial distinctions which conquest brings in its train.
Isolated hill ranges and lofty plateaux, guarded by fever-
haunted forests and offering no prospect of profit or plunder,
furnish an abiding refuge for tribes which are compact enough
to emigrate en masse. Lastly, a coast line almost devoid of
sheltering harbours, while it may invite a daring invader, fails
to foster the maritime skill and enterprise which alone can
repulse his landing.
For the internal factors — the races which lived and struggled
T . , -r, ^ within the environment roughly sketched
Internal Factors. , , ,
above — we must depend to a great extent
upon speculative data. Living organisms are more complex
and less stable than their material surroundings. The hills
may not be everlasting, as poets have imagined, but they out-
live countless generations of men, and the changes that time
works in their structure do impress on them some record,
however imperfect, of processes which it has taken ages to
complete. Man alone passes and leaves nothing behind. India
in particular is conspicuous fOT the absence of the pre-historic
evidence of which ethnologists in Europe have made such
admirable use. There are no cave deposits, no sepulchral
mounds or barrows, no kitchen middens, no lake dwellings,
no ancient fortified towns such as modern research is now
unearthing in Greece,* and no sculptured bones or weapons
portraying the vicissitudes of the life of primitive man. The
climate and the insects have obliterated all perishable vestiges
of the past, and what nature may have spared a people devoid
of the historic sense has made no effort to preserve. To fill
the blank we are thrown back mainly on conjecture. Yet in
India conjecture starts from a more solid basis than in the
progressive countries of the Western world. For here we have
before our eyes a society in many respects still primitive,
which preserves, like a palimpsest manuscript, survivals of
immemorial antiquity. In a land where all things always are
the same we are justified in concluding that what is happening
now must have happened, very much in the same way, through-
out the earlier stages of human society in India. Observation
of the present is our best guide to the reconstruction of
the past.
* In an instructive paper recently published Professor Kabbadias, Director of Antiquities
in Greece, shows that in pre-historic times fortified towns occupied the place taken in other
countries by pile-dwellings, Man, Deer., 1904, No. 112.
PHYSICAL TYPES 5
On a stone panel forming part of one of the grandest
Buddhist monuments in India, the great
tope at Sanchi, a carving in low relief of'indi"rn°Bootety.
depicts a strange religious ceremony.*
Under trees with conventional foliage and fruits, three women,
attired in tight clothing without skirts, kneel in prayer before
a small shrine or altar. In the foreground, the leader of a
procession of monkeys bears in both hands a bowl of liquid
and stoops to offer it at the shrine. His solemn countenance
and the grotesquely adoring gestures of his comrades seem
intended to express reverence, devotion, and humility. In
the background four stately figures, two men and two women
of tall stature and regular features, clothed in flowing robes
and wearing elaborate turbans, look on with folded hands in
apparent approval of this remarkable act of worship. Anti-
quarian speculation has for the most part passed the panel by
unnoticed, or has sought to associate it with some pious legend
of the life of Buddha. A larger interest, however, attaches to
the scene, if it is regarded as the sculptured expression of the
race sentiment of the Aryans towards the Dravidians, which
runs through the whole course of Indian tradition and survives
in scarcely abated strength to the present day. In this view
the carving would belong to the same order of ideas as the
story in the Ramayana of the army of apes who assisted Rama
in the invasion of Ceylon. It shows us the higher race on
friendly terms with the lower, but keenly conscious of the
essential difference of type and taking no active part in the
ceremony at which they appear as sympathetic but patronizing
spectators. An attempt is made in the following pages to
show that the race sentiment which inspired this curious
sculpture, rests upon a foundation of facts which can be
verified by scientific methods; that it supplied the motive
principle of caste; that it continues, in the form of fiction or
tradition, to shape the most modern developments of the
system ; and, finally, that its influence has tended to preserve
in comparative purity the types which it favours.
It is a familiar experience that the ordinary untravelled
European, on first arriving in India, finds much difficulty in
distinguishing one native of the country from another. To
his untrained eye all Indians are black; all have the same
[* For an illustration of this relief see F. C. Maisey, Sanchi and its Remains, 1892,
Plate ix, Fig. I. The value of this relief, from the point of view of anthropology, has
been disputed {Census Report, Punjab, 191 1, vol. i., p. 400).]
6 PEOPLE OF INDIA
cast of countenance ; and all, except the " decently naked "
labouring classes, wear loose garments which revive dim
memories of the attire of the Greeks and Romans. An
observant man soon shakes off these illusions and realizes the
extraordinary diversity of the types which are met with
everywhere in India. The first step in his education is to
learn to tell a Hindu from a Muhammadan. A further stage
is reached when it dawns upon him that the upper classes
of Hindus are much fairer than the lower and that their features
are moulded on finer lines. Later on, if opportunity favours
him, he comes to recognize at a glance the essential differences
between the Punjabi and the Bengali, the Pathan and the
Gurkha, the Rajput and the "Jungly" tea coolie: he will no
longer take a Maratha Brahman for a Madrasi, or an Oriya
for a native of Kashmir. He learns, in short, to distinguish
what may be called the provincial types of the people of India,
the local, racial, or linguistic aggregates which at first sight
seem to correspond to the nations of Europe. But the general
impressions thus formed, though accurate enough so far as
they go, are wanting in scientific precision. They cannot be
recorded or analyzed; no description can convey their
effect ; they melt away in the attempt to fix them, and leave
nothing behind.
The modern science of ethnology endeavours to define and
to classify the various physical types, with
'^EthmScT °^ reference to their distinctive characteristics,
in the hope that when sufficient data have
been accumulated it may be possible in some measure to
account for the types themselves, to determine the elements
of which they are composed, and thus to establish their con-
nexion with one or other of the great families of mankind. In
India, where historical evidence can hardly be said to exist,
the data ordinarily available are of three kinds — physical
characters, linguistic characters, and religious and social usages.
Of these the first are by far the most trustworthy. Most
anthropologists, indeed, are now inclined to adopt without
much question the opinion of the late Sir William Flower,
who wrote to me some years ago that " physical characters
are the best, in fact the only true tests of race, that is, of real
affinity ; language, customs, etc., may help or give indications,
but they are often misleading."
The claims of language to share in the settlement of questions
of race cannot, however, be dismissed in a single sentence.
PHYSICAL TYPES ;
Nearly twenty years ago, when the ethnographic survey of
Bengal was in progresSi the late Professor ^ , _,
,,,,„ , , Language and Kace.
Max Muller sent me a long letter, since
published in his collected works, in which he protested against
" the unholy alliance " of the twb sciences of ethnology and
comparative philology. At first sight it is hard to understand
why two lines of research, dealing with different subjects and
working towards different ends, should be charged with
nefarious collusion for the purpose of perverting the truth.
A clue to the grounds of the accusation is, however, furnished
by Sir Henry Maine's remark that the study of the sacred
languages of India has given to the world " the modern science
of Philology and the modern theory of Race." The study
of Sanskrit received its first impetus from the publication by
Sir William Jones of translations of Kalidasa's Sakuntala in
1789 and of the Institutes of Manu in 1794.* The discovery
was announced and its importance emphasised in Friedrich vOn
Schlegel's treatise on the Language and Wisdom of the Hindus ;
but even with this assistance the fresh ideas took more than
a generation to spread beyond the narrow circle of Orientalists
and to impress themselves upon the main current of European
thought. The birth of a new science, based upon an ancient
language of which most people then heard for the first time,
was inaugurated by Friedrich Bopp's Comparative Grammar
of the Indo-European languages. The editions of this work
extend over the period 1833— 1852, so that the beginnings of
Comparative Philology coincide in point of time with the
popular upheaval which found expression in the revolutionairy
movements of 1848. The belief that linguistic affinities prove
community of descent was one which commended itself alike
to populations struggling for freedom and to rulers in search
of excuses for removing a neighbour's landmark. The old
idea of tribal sovereignty seemed almost to have revived
when Napoleon III. assumed the title of Emperor of the
French and justified his annexation of Savoy by the plea that
territory where French was spoken ought to belong to France.
As the principle gained strength and was invoked on a larger
[* Professor A. A. Macdonell points out that "the first impulse to the study of Sanskrit
was given by the practical administrative needs of our Indian possessions. Warren
Hastings, at that time Governor-General, clearly seeing the advantage of ruling the Hindus
as far as possible according to their own laws and customs, caused a number of Brahihahs
to prepare a digest based on the best ancient legal authorities. An English version of this
Sanskrit compilation, made through the medium of a Persian translation, was published
in 1776." {A History of Sanskrit Literature, 1900, p. 2.)]
8 PEOPLE OF INDIA
scale it gave rise to the political aspirations implied in the
terms Pan-Teutonism, Pan-Hellenism, Pan-Slavism ; it helped
the cause of German unity ; it was appealed to in the name
of united Italy ; and, if carried to its logical conclusion, it
may some day contribute to the disruption of the Austrian
Empire.
Thus we find Comparative Philology, in the hands of ardent
patriots and astute diplomatists, trespassing on the domain of
ethnology and confusing for political purposes the two distinct
conceptions of race and nationality. But the ethnologists
themselves were not free from blame. So far from resisting
the encroachment on their territory they lent their authority
to the prevailing tendency and based their classification of
races mainly upon linguistic characters. For this they may
well be held to have had some substantial excuses. In the
first place linguistic data are far easier to collect on a large
scale, and far easier to examine when collected, than the physical
observations which form the main basis of ethnological con-
clusions. The vast array of languages and dialects which fill
the sixteen volumes of Dr. Grierson's Linguistic Survey of
India was brought together from the most distant corners of
the Empire by the simple device of circulating for translation
the parable of the Prodigal Son (the fatted calf, in deference
to Hindu sentiment, being discreetly transformed into a goat),
together with a small number of common words and phrases.
But to have recorded the physical characters of the people
on a similar scale would have cost an immense sum ; the
operations would have extended over many years ; and the
results would probably have been vitiated by the personal
divergencies of the numerous observers whom it would have
been necessary to employ.
Secondly, languages lend themselves far more readily to
precise classification than the minute variations of form and
feature which go to make up an ethnic type. Thirdly, — and
this is perhaps the most important point of all — while there
are practically no mixed languages, there are hardly any pure
races. Judged by the only sound test, that of grammatical
structure as distinguished from mere vocabulary, all languages
may be regarded as true genera and species from which no
hybrid progeny can arise. Words may be borrowed on a
larger or smaller scale, but the essential structure of the
language remains unchanged, the foreign elements being forced
into an indigenous mould. Thus French people who have
PHYSICAL TYPES 9
taken to afternoon tea have evolved the verb "five dcloquer" ;
a Bengali clerk who is late for office will say ami miss-train
kariyachhi, converting a mangled English phrase into a
characteristic verbal noun ; and a Berlin tram-conductor, who
was explaining to me how his working hours had come to be
reduced, summed up the position with the words " wir haben
namlich streikirt." In each case a foreign phrase has been
taken to express an imported idea; but this phrase has been
absorbed and dealt with in accordance with the genius of the
language, and there is no approach to structural hybridism.
Races, on the other hand, mix freely ; they produce endless
varieties ; and it can hardly be said even now that any
satisfactory agreement has been arrived at as to the system
on which such varieties should be classified.
These considerations go some way towards accounting for
the " unholy alliance " which politics and the spirit of classifica-
tion have combined to bring about between two distinct
sciences. They fail, however, to give us much assistance in
the solution of the main question — what are the true relations
between Ethnology and Philology? Within what limits can
we argue from correspondences of language to community of
race or from differences of language to diversity of race ? Are
we to hold with Schwiker and Hale that language is the only
. true test of racial affinities ; or should we follow Sayce's
opinion that "identity or relationship of language can prove
nothing more than social contact " ? The mere fact that speech
is a physiological function, depending in the last resort on the
structure of the larynx, suggests that the latter view may be
too absolutely expressed. That some races produce sounds
which other races can only imitate imperfectly is a matter of
common observation, and may reasonably be ascribed to
differences of vocal machinery. The clicks of the Bushman
and Hottentot, the gutturals of Arabic and the dental and
cerebral consonants of the Indian vernaculars present varying
degrees of difficulty to the average European. Similar differ-
ences of phonetic capacity may be observed among the Indian
races. Bengalis, as Dr. Grierson has pointed out, "cannot
pronounce a clear s but make it sh " ; the natives of Western
India tend to turn v into w ; and nearly all Orientals find a
difficulty ift starting a word like Smith without prefixing
a vowel and turning it into " I-Smith." Even within the range
of a single language, dialectic variations occur which may be
due to physical causes. The gobbling speech of the people of
lo PEOPLE OF INDIA
Chittagong and Eastern Bengal, and their inability to negotiate
certain consonants, seem to suggest that their original tongue
belonged to the Tibeto-Burman family, and that their vocal
apparatus must differ materially from that of their Western
neighbours.* Whether it will ever be possible to define these
variations, and to correlate them with racial characteristics, is
a question for students of the physiological side of the modern
science of phonetics.
The truth as to the relation between race and language
probably lies somewhere between the extreme views noticed
above, but it can only be reached by an examination of the
facts. There are four possible cases : —
(i) where both language and physical type have been
changed by contact with other races or communities,
as have happened with the Bengali-speaking KtDchh,
who have lost their tribal language while their
original Mongoloid type, still clearly discernible
among their congeners in Assam, has been modified
by intermixture with a Dravidian element ;
(2) where the language has changed but the racial type has
remained the same, as with the Gauls, Normans, and
Lombards in Europe, the Negroes in America, and
the Ahoms, Bhumij and many others in India ;
(3) where the original language has been retained but the
racial type has changed, as with the Basques and
Magyars in Europe, the Khas in Nepal, and a large
proportion of the Rajputs all over India ;
(4) where both language and physical type are unchanged,
as with the Andamanese, the Santals, the Mundas, the
Manipuris and many others.
In the first two cases an appeal to language would clearly
be ineffectual unless historical evidence were forthcoming to
show what the original language had been. In India the
genius loci has not turned to history, and almost the only
instance in which ancient records throw light upon the origin
of a tribe is that of the Ahoms, a Shan people who entered
Assam early in the thirteenth century and within the next
three hundred years conquered and gave their name to the
country. Towards the end of the seventeenth century they
[* " So full of consonants are Tibetan words that most of them could be articulated with
almost semi-closed mouth, evidently from the enforced necessity to keep the lips closed as
far as possible against the cutting cold when speaking" (L. A. Waddell, Lhasa and its
Mysteries, 3rd ed., 1906, p. 144).]
PHYSICAL TYPES ii
embraced Hinduism, lost their original language, and "became,
like Brahmans, powerful in talk alone." Their chronicles
{huranji or " store of instructions for the ignorant ") were kept
up by their priests in Ahom, "an old form of the language
which ultimately became Shan," and are the chief authority for
the early history of Assam.
To the remaining two cases we may apply a canon which I
suggested to Dr. Grierson some two years ago, and which he
has embodied in his chapter on Language in the Census
Report of 1901. I would now state it somewhat more fully
thus : —
(i) In areas where several languages are spoken, one or
more of them will usually be found to be gaining
ground, while others are stationary or declining : the
condition of stable equilibrium is comparatively rare.
The former may be described in relation to any given
area as dominant, the latter as decadent or subordinate
languages. What languages belong to either class is,
in each case, a matter of observation.
(2) The fact that a particular tribe or people uses a dominant
language does not of itself suggest any inference as to
their origin.
(3) The fact that such a group speaks a decadent language
may supply evidence of their origin, the value of
which will vary with circumstances.
It must be admitted, however, that these propositions do
not carry us very far, and that in their application to particular
cases they tend to break down just at the point where the
enquiry begins to be interesting. Of course it is obvious
enough that the fact that the Rajbansi-Kochh and the Bhumij
both speak Bengali does not prove them to be oif Indo-Aryah
descent. On this point their physical type would be con-
clusive, even if we had not independent evidence that a few
generations ago they spoke tribal languages of their own.
Similarly, when one finds two small and isolated communities
in Bengal, the Siyalgirs of Midnapur and the Kichaks of Dacca,
speaking Bhil dialects of Gujarati, one is naturally disposed to
infer that these people must have come from Gujarat, and are
probably related in some way to the Bhils. But here again
there is room for doubt. Although both Kichaks and Siyalgirs
are now of settled habits, the traditions of the former, and the
usages and occupations of both, suggest that at no very distant
date they formed part of that misfcellaneous multitude of gipsy
12 PEOPLE OF INDIA
folk whose origin is no less of a mystery in India than in other
parts of the world. To people of their habits— the Kichaks
say that their ancestors were dacoits, and the Siyalgirs are
credited with thievish proclivities — the possession of a special
argot would be an obvious convenience, and it seems simpler
to suppose that this circumstance led to the wide diffusion of
the dialect than to argue that the small groups which make use
of it in Bengal must be fragments of a distant and compact
tribe like the Bhils. Thieves' patters have a family likeness
all the world over, but no one has yet attempted to trace the
speakers to a common ancestor.
Other minor instances deserve passing mention. The Vaidu
herbalists of Poona, who speak Marathi to their neighbours,
explain the fact that they use Kanarese among themselves by
the tradition that they were brought from the Kanara country
by one of the Peshwas and settled in Kirki. The Kasar copper-
smiths of Nasik speak Gujarati at home and Marathi out of
doors. The men dress like Marathas, but the women still wear
the characteristic petticoat (ghagra) of Gujarat instead of the
Maratha sari. In both these cases linguistic evidence points to
a migration ; but the value of the deduction is small. For we
know historically that the migration must have been a recent
one and it could probably be established on independent
grounds. Nor do linguistic considerations throw any light upon
the curious question how it is that the Mundas and Oraons,
two distinct tribes of identical physical type, speak languages
which differ widely in respect of structure and vocabulary.
But perhaps the most notable illustration of the weakness
of the argument from affinity of language to affinity of race is
afforded by Brahui. One of the maps in Dr. Grierson's chapter
on language in the Census Report for India in 1901, shows the
distribution of the Dravidian languages. Most of the Dravidian-
speaking areas are massed in the south of India, while a few
outlying patches represent Gond in the Central Provinces and
Kandh, Kurnkh, and Malto in Bengal. Otherwise the map is
blank save for Brahui, a tiny island of Dravidian speech far
away in Baluchistan where it is surrounded on all sides by
Indo-Aryan languages. As to the Dravidian affinities of the
Brahui language, I understand that there is practical agreement
among linguistic authorities. Concerning the conclusions to
be drawn from -this fact opinions differ widely. One school
founds upon it the hypothesis that the Dravidians entered
India from beyond the north-west frontier, while another
PHYSICAL TYPES 13
regards the Brahui as an outpost of the main body of
Dravidians in Southern India. Both assume identity of race,
and both ignore the essential fact that, as is shown at length
below, few types of humanity can present more marked
physical differences than the Brahui and the Dravidian. How
then can we explain the resemblances of language? Surely
only by assuming that at some remote period the two races
must have been in contact and that the speech of one influenced
that of the other. Thus what seems at first sight to be a crucial
instance serves merely to bring out the uncertainty that besets
any attempt to argue from language to race. Here, if any-
where, is a decadent and isolated language ; here, if anywhere,
it ought to tell a plain tale ; and here, when confronted with
other evidence, it conspicuously fails us. Thus we end very
much where we began, with the rather impotent conclusion that
in questions of racial affinity, while the testimony of language
should certainly be considered, the chances are against its
telling us anything that we did not know already from other
and less dubious sources.
For ethnological purposes physical characters may be
said to be of two kinds — indefinite characters
which can only be described in more or less "^ eharactem^"*
appropriate language, and definite characters
which admit of being measured and reduced to numerical
expression. The former class, usually called descriptive or
secondary characters, includes such points as the colour and
texture of the skin ; the colour, form, and position of the eyes ;
the colour and character of the hair; and the form of the face
and features. Conspicuous as these traits are, the difficulty of
observing, defining, and recording them is extreme. Colour,
the most striking of them all, is perhaps the most evasive, and
deserves fuller discussion as presenting a typical instance of
the shortcomings of the descriptive method. Some forty years
ago the French anthropologist Broca devised a chromatic scale
consisting of twenty shades, regularly graduated and numbered,
for registering the colour of the eyes, and thirty-four for the
skin. The idea was that the observer would consult the scale
and note the numbers of the shades which he found to corre-
spond most closely with the colouring of his subjects. Experience,
however, has shown that with a scale so elaborate as Broca's
the process of matching colooirs is not so easy as it looks ;
that different people are apt to arrive at widely different con-
clusions ; and that even when the numbers have been correctly
14 PEOPLE OF INDIA
registered no one can translate the result of the observations
into intelligible language. For these reasons Broca's successor
Topinard reverted to the method of simple description, unaided
by any scale of pattern colours. He describes, for example,
the mud-coloured hair so common among the peasants of
Central Europe as having the colour of a dusty chestnut. In
the latest edition of the Anthropological Notes and Queries
published under the auspices of the British Association, an
attempt is made to combine the two systems. A greatly
simplified colour scale is given, and each colour is also briefly
described. I doubt, however, whether it is possible to do more
than to indicate in very general terms the impression which
a particular colour makes upon the observer. In point of fact
the colour of the skin is rather what may be called an artistic
expression, dependent partly upon the action of light, partly on
the texture and transparency of the skin itself, and partly again
on the great variety of shades which occur in every part of its
surface. It is hopeless to expect that this complex of characters
can be adequately represented by a patch of opaque paint which
is necessarily uniform throughout and devoid of any suggestion
of light and shade.
The difficulty which besets all attempts to classify colour is
enhanced in India by the fact that, for the bulk of the popula-
tion, the range of variation, especially in the case of the eyes
and hair, is exceedingly small. The skin, no doubt, exhibits
extreme divergencies of colouring which any one can detect at
a glance. At one end of the scale we have the dead black of
the Andamanese, the colour of a blackleaded stove before it
has been polished, and the somewhat brighter black of the
Dravidians of Southern India, which has been aptly compared
to the colour of strong coffee unmixed with milk. Of the
Irulas of the Nilgiri jungles, some South Indian humourist is
reported to have said that charcoal leaves a white mark upon
them. At the other end one may place the flushed ivory skin
of the typical Kashmiri beauty and the very light transparent
brown — " wheat-coloured " is the common vernacular descrip-
tion— of the higher castes of Upper India, which Emil Schmidt
compares to milk just tinged with coffee and describes as
hardly darker than is found in members of the swarthier races
of Southern Europe. Between these extremes we find count-
less shades of brown, darker or lighter, transparent or opaque,
frequently tending towards yellow, more rarely 'approaching
a reddish tint, and occasionally degenerating into a sort of
PHYSICAL TYPES iS
greyish black which seems to depend on the character of the
surface of the skin. It would be a hopeless task to attempt
to register and to classify these variations. Nor, if it were
done, should we be in a position to evolve order out of thp
chaos of tints. For even in the individual minute gradations
of colour are comparatively unstable, and are liable to be
affected not only by exposure to sun and wind, but also by
differences of temperature and humidity. Natives of Bengal
have assured me that people of their race, one of the darkest
in India, become appreciably fairer when domiciled in Hindu-
stan or the Punjab ; and the converse process may be observed
not only in natives of Upper India living in the damp heat of
the Ganges delta, but in Indians returning from a prolonged
stay in Europe, who undergo a perceptible change of colour
during the voyage to the East. The fair complexion of the
women of the shell-cutting Sankari caste in Dacca is mainly
due to their seclusion in dark rooms, and the Lingayats of
Southern India who wear a box containing a tiny phallus tied
in a silk cloth round the upper arm, show, when they take
it off, a pale band of skin contrasting sharply with the colour
of the rest of the body.
Still less variety is traceable in the character of the eyes
and hair. From one end of India to the other, the hair of the
great mass of the population is black or dark brown, while
among the higher castes the latter colour is occasionally, shot
through by something approaching a tawny shade. Straight
haii" seems, on the whole, to predominate, but hair of a wavy
or curly character appears in much the same proportion as
among the faces of Europe. The Andamanese have woolly or
frizzy hair, oval in section and curling on itself so tightly that
it seems to grow in separate spiral tufts, while in fact it is
quite evenly distributed over the scalp. Although the terms
woolly and frizzy have been loosely applied to the wavy hair
not uncommon among the Dravidians, no good observer has
as yet found among any of the Indian races a head of hair
that could be correctly described as woolly. Throughout
India the eyes are almost invariably dark brown. Occasional
instances of grey eyes are found among the Konkanasth Brahmans
of Bombay, and the combination of blue eyes, auburn hair,
and reddish blonde complexion is met with on the north-
western frontier. On the Malabar coast in the south, Mr.
Thurston had noticed several instances of pale blue and grey
eyes combined with a dark complexion and has even seen
i6 PEOPLE OF INDIA
a Syrian Christian baby of undoubted native parentage with
bright carroty hair. The Syrian Christians of South Travancore
say, indeed, that they differ from Northerners in having a red
tinge to the moustache.
When we turn to the definite or anthropometric characters
we find ourselves upon firmer ground. The
^ characters!*'* ^^^^ °^ applying instruments of precision to
the measurement of the human body was
familiar to the Egyptians and the Greeks, both of whom appear
to have made extensive experiments with the object of arriving
at a " canon " or ideal type, showing the proportions which
various parts of the body should bear to the entire figure and
to each other. Such canons were usually expressed either in
terms of a particular member of which the rest were supposed
to be multiples, or in fractional parts of the entire stature.
Thus, according to Lepsius, the Egyptian canon is based on
the length of the middle finger and this measure is supposed
to be contained nineteen times in the full stature, three times
in the head and neck, eight times in the arm, and so forth.
The Greek canon, on the other hand, as restored by Quetelet,
expresses the limbs and other dimensions in thousandth parts
of the entire stature. Concerning this canon a curious story
is told by Topinard, not without interest in its bearings upon
the relations of Egyptian and Greek art. In 1866, the eminent
French anthropologist Broca was asked on behalf of an artist
who was engaged in the attempt to reconstruct the Greek
standard, to provide a skeleton corresponding in its propor-
tions to certain measurements derived from an examination
of the Belvedere Apollo. After some search Broca found in
the Museum of the Anthropological Society at Paris a skeleton
of the type required. It was that of a Soudanese negro named
Abdullah, and from this Broca concluded that the famous
statue of Apollo had been modelled on the Egyptian canon,
which in his opinion had been derived by Egyptian sculptors
from the study of the Nubian negroes whom they employed
as models.
The Roman canon handed down in the treatise De Archi-
tectura of Vitruvius was taken up and developed in the early
days of the Renaissance by Leo Battista Alberti, himself, like
Vitruvius, an architect, and a curious enquirer into the secret
ways of nature and of the human frame. Forty years later
Leonardo da Vinci, in his Trattato delta pittura, expressed the
general opinion that the proportions of the body should be
PHYSICAL TYPES 17
studied in children and adults of both sexes, and refuted the
opinion of Vitruvius that the navel should be deemed the centre
of the body. Following Leonardo's suggestions, Albrecht
Diirer addressed himself to the task of working out the pro-
portions of the body for different ages and sexes, for persons
of different heights, and for different types of figure. In his
"Four books on the proportions of the human figure," published
at Nurnberg in 1528, the year of his death, Diirer discussed
the difficult question of the so-called "orientation" or adjust-
ment of the head in an upright position, and he is believed
by the authors of the Crania ethnica to have also anticipated
Camper's invention of the facial angle. Jean Cousin, a French
contemporary of Dilrer's, took the nose as his unit of length
and represented the ideal head as measuring four noses, and
the ideal stature as equivalent to eight heads or thirty-two
noses. Cousin's system, slightly modified by Charles Blanc,
holds its own at the present day as the canon des ateliers of
French artists, preference, however, being given in ordinary
parlance to the head rather than the nose as the unit of
length.
All these canons, it will be observed, approach the subject
purely from the artistic point of view ; and so far from taking
account of the distinctive characters of particular races, incline
to sink these in the attempt to frame a general canon of the
proportions of the body which should hold good for the whole
of mankind. Such an endeavour would be foreign to the
purpose of anthropology, which fixes its attention on points
of difference rather than of resemblance, and seeks by exami-
nation and analysis of such differences to form hypotheses
concerning the genesis of the distinct race stocks now in
existence. It would perhaps be fanciful to trace the germs of
anthropometric research in the statement of Herodotus that
the skulls of the Persian soldiers slain at the battle of Plataea
were thin, and those of the Egyptians were thick, or to cite
his explanation, that the former lived an indoor life and always
wore hats, while the latter shave their heads from infancy and
exposed them to sun without covering, as
the earliest instance of the modern scientific '^'^avaUabie."^
doctrine of the influence of external con-
'ditions. But when Ctesias speaks of the small stature, black
complexion, and snub noses of the inhabitants of India, we
feel that the description is precise enough to enable us to
identify them with the Dasyus and Nishadas of early Sanskrit
R, PI 2
i8 PEOPLE OF INDIA
literature, and we are almost tempted to wonder whether the
Greek physician, who was doubtless acquainted with the canon
of Polycletus, may not have devised some accurate methodof
recording the racial characteristics of which he was so close
an observer. Curiously enough the famous potter, Bernard
de Palissy, was the first to throw out, in a humorous dialogue
published in 1563, the idea of measuring the skull for purposes
other than artistic. The passage quoted by Topinard is too
quaint to be omitted here : — " Quoy voyant il me print envie
de mesurer la teste d'un homme pour sgavoir directement ses
mesures, et me semble que la sauterelle, la regie, et le compas
me seroient fort propres pour cest affaire, mais, quoy qu'il
en soit, je n'y sceu jamais trouver une mesure osseuse, parce
que les folies qui estaient en ladite teste luy faisaient changer
ses mesures."
Palissy, however, cannot be seriously put forward as the
founder of scientific craniometry, and that
^mln°/adopted!" title perhaps most properly belongs to the
Swedish naturalist, Anders Retzius, who
in 1842 hit upon the device of expressing one of the chief
characters of the skull by the relation of its maximum breadth
to its maximum length, the latter being taken to be one
thousand. In this way he distinguished two forms of skull — the
dolicho-cephalic, or long-headed type, in which the length
exceeds the breadth by about one-fourth, and the brachy-cepha-
lic, or short-headed type, in which the length exceeds the
breadth by a proportion varying from one-fifth to one-eighth.
Thus according to Retzius the Swedes are long-headed in the
proportion 773 : 1000, and the Lapps short-headed in the pro-
portion 865 : 1000. He also distinguished two types of face —
the orthognathic, in which the jaws and teeth project either
not at all, or very little beyond a line drawn from the forehead,
and the prognathic, in which this projection is very marked.
His classification of races was based upon these characteristics.
In 1 861 Broca improved Retzius' system by expressing it in
hundredths instead of thousandths, by introducing an inter-
mediate group, called mesati-cephalic or medium-headed and
ranging from 777 to 80 per cent, and by giving the name
of cephalic index to the relation between the two diameters.
Numerous other measurements, which are described in the-
literature of the subject, have since been introduced.
In the earlier days of anthropology, it was natural that
the attention of students should have been directed mainly to
PHYSICAL TYPES 19
the examination of skulls. Craniometry seemed to offer a
solution of the problems regarding the
origin and antiquity of the human race which Anthropometey.
then divided the scientific world. Its precise
method promised to clear up the mystery of the prehistoric
skulls discovered in the quaternary strata of Europe, and to
connect them on the one side with a possible Simian ancestor
of mankind and on the other with the races of the present day.
The latter line of research led on to the measurements of
living subjects, which have since been undertaken by a number
of enquirers on a very large scale. Anthropometry which
deals with living people, while craniometry is concerned
exclusively with skulls, possesses certain advantages over the
elder science. For reasons too technical to enter upon here,
its procedure is in some respects less precise and its results
less minute and exhaustive than those of craniometry. These
minor shortcomings are, however, amply made up for by its
incomparably wider range. The number of subjepts available
is practically unlimited ; measurements can be undertaken on
a scale large enough to eliminate, not merely the personal
equation of the measurer, but also the occasional variations of
type arising from intermixture of blood ; and the investigation
is not restricted to the characters of the head, but extends
to the stature and the proportions of the limbs. A further
advantage arises from the fact that no doubts can be cast upon
the identity of the individuals measured. In working with
skulls, whether prehistoric or modern, this last point has to be
reckoned with. The same place of sepulture may have been
used in succession by two different races, and the skulls of
conquering chiefs may be mixed with those of alien slaves
or of prisoners slain to escort their captors to the world of
the dead. The savage practice of head-hunting may equally
bring about a deplorable confusion of cranial types ; famine
skulls may belong to people who have wandered from no one
knows where; and even hospital specimens may lose their
identity in the process of cleaning. In the second of his
elaborate monographs on the craniology of the people of India
Sir William Turner observes * that among the Oriya skulls
belonging to the Indian Museum, which were lent to him for
examination, some crania partake "of Dravidian, others of
Aryan characters," while in others again there is " a trace of
* Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. XL. Pars I. (No. 6).
20 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Mongolian or other brachy-cephalic intermixture." He sur-
mises, therefore, that " no proper history of the dead had been
obtained, and that in consequence the skulls had not been
accurately identified." As a matter of fact most of these skulls
were acquired during the Orissa famine of 1866, and the only
description they bear is " Oriya " or " Orissa," the word
" Hindu " being occasionally added. To any one who is
acquainted with the conditions which prevailed in Orissa at
that time it is obvious that a given skull may have belonged
to a broad-nosed Dravidian from the hill tracts, to a high caste
Hindu of the coast strip, or to a Mongoloid pilgrim from Nepal
who died of starvation or cholera while seeking salvation at
Jagannath. The characters of the skulls themselves render it
probable that all of these indefinite groups are represented in
the collection.
Scientific anthropometry was introduced into India on a
large scale twenty years ago in connexion
^ in ineu^ ^ w'*^h the ethnographic survey of Bengal
then in progress. The survey itself was a
first attempt to apply to Indian ethnography the methods of
systematic research sanctioned by the authority of European
anthropologists. Among these the measurement of physical
characters occupies a prominent place, and it seemed that the
restrictions on intermarriage, which are peculiar to the Indian
social system, would favour this method of observation, and
would enable it to yield peculiarly clear and instructive results.
A further reason for resorting to anthropometry was the fact
that the wholesale borrowing of customs and ceremonies which
goes on among the various social groups in India makes it
practically impossible to arrive at any certain conclusions by
examining these practices. Finally, the necessity of employing
more precise methods was accentuated by Mr. Nesfield's *
uncompromising denial of the truth of " the modern doctrine
which divides the population of India into Aryan and abori-
ginal," and his assertion of the essential unity of the Indian
race, enforced as it was by the specific statements that "the
great majority of Brahmans are not of lighter complexion or of
finer and better bred features than any other caste," and that
a stranger walking through the class rooms of the Sanskrit
College at Benares "would never dream of supposing" that
the high caste students of that exclusive institution "were
♦ t^gsfield's Brie/ View of the Caste System of the North- West Provinces and Oudh.
PHYSICAL TYPES ii
distinct in race and blood from tiie scavengers who swept
the roads." A theory which departed so widely from literary
tradition, from the current beliefs of the people, and from the
opinians of most independent observers called for the search-
ing test which anthropometry promised to furnish, and the
case was crucial enough to put the method itself on its trial.
The experiment has been justified by its results.
In 1890 I published in the Journal of the Anthropological
Institute,* under the title "The Study of Ethnology in India,"
a summary of the measurements of eighty-nine characteristic
tribes and castes of Bengal, the United Provinces of Agra and
Oudh, and the Punjab. These measurements were taken in
accordance with a scheme approved by the late Sir William
Flower of the British Museum and Professor Topinard of
Paris. Topinard's instruments were used, and his instructions
were closely followed throughout. Analysis of the data
rendered it possible to distinguish in the area covered by
the experiment three main types, which were named pro-
visionally Aryan, Dravidian, and Mongoloid, The charac-
teristics of these Fypes will be discussed fully below. Here it
is sufficient to remark that the classification was accepted at
the time by Flower, Beddoe, and Haddon in England, by
Topinard in France, and by Virchow, Schmidt, and Kollmann
in Germany. It has recently been confirmed by the high
authority of Sir William Turner, who has been led by the
examination of a large number of skulls to the same con-
clusions that were suggested to me by measurements taken on
living subjects, and has been good enough to quote and adopt
my descriptions of the leading types in his monographs f on
the subject. Similar confirmation is furnished in the case of
the Punjab by the craniometric researches of Lieutenant-
Colonel Sir Havelock Charles.| Great additions have since
been made to the number of measurements on living subjects
by the exertions of Mr. Edgar Thurston, Superintendent of
Ethnography for Southern India, under the comprehensive
scheme of research sanctioned by Lord Curzon ; by Sir T. H.
Holland, Director of the Geological Survey of India, who has
contributed important data for the Coorgs and Yeruvas of
* J. A. I., XX, 235.
t " Contributions to the Craniology of the People of the Empire of India." Trans-
actions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. XXXIX., Part III. (No. 28) ; Vol. XL.,
Part I. (No. 6).
% y ournal of Anatomy and Physiology, Vol. XXVII., p. 20.
22 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Southern India and the Kanets of Kulu and Lahoul ; * by my
anthropometric assistants, Rai Sahib Kumud Behari Saraanta
and Mr. B. A. Gupte, who' have carried out under my instruc-
tions an extensive series of measurements in Baluchistan,
Rajputana, Bombay, Orissa, and Burma ; and by Lieutenant-
Colonel Waddell, c.b., c.i.e,, of the Indian Medical Service, who
has published some valuable data for Assam, and parts of
Bengal in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.t
It is clearly impossible, within the compass of this sketch,
to enter upon a full analysis of all the measurements which
have been collected. I have therefore selected three characters,
the proportions of the head, the proportions of the nose, and
the stature, and have included them in the tables appended to
this volume. For two groups I have also taken the orbito-
nasal index, which affords a very precise test of the comparative
flatness of face, determined mainly by the prominence or
depression of the root of the nose in relation to the bones of
the orbit and cheek, which is a distinctive characteristic of the
Mongolian races. The measurements are arranged under the
seven types, into which I now propose to divide the popula-
tion ; in every case the average and the maximum and minimum
indices or dimensions are shown ; and for each type diagrams
are given, showing the sedation of the data for the tribes or
castes selected as characteristic of the type. It need hardly be
added that the conclusions which I have ventured to put
forward are necessarily provisional, and will be of use mainly
as a guide to research, and as an indication of the progress
made up to date in this line of enquiry. During the next few
years the data will be greatly added to by the ethnographic
survey, and we may then hope to be in a position to make
some approach to a final classification of the people of India on
the basis of their physical characters.
Meanwhile, it may be of service to point out that no natural
classification of the varieties of the human species has as yet
General elassiflca- ^^^^ arrived at. Certain extreme types can,
tion of mankind: the of course, be readily distinguished. No one
three primary types. ^^^ f^j^ ^^ recognize the enormous struc-
tural differences between an Andamanese and a Chinaman,
an Englishman, and a Negro, or a Patagonian and a Hottentot.
t* yournal Asiatic Society, Bengal, Vol. LXV., Part III., 1901, p. 59 et seq. Journal
Anthropological htstitute. Vol. XXXII., 1902, p. 96 et seq.'\
t J. A. S. B., Vol. LXIX., Part III., 1900.
PHYSICAL TYPES 23
But owing to the tendency of individuals to vary, and to the
intermixture of races, which has gone on more or less at all
times, and is continually increasing with modern improvements
in communications, the apparently impassable gulf between the
extreme types is bridged over by a number of intermediate or
transitional forms, which shade into each other by almost
imperceptible degrees. It is therefore practically impossible
to divide mankind into a number of definite groups in one or
other of which every individual will find a place. Even as
regards the primary groups there has been great diversity of
opinion, and the number suggested by different writers ranges
from two to more than sixty. In the main, however, as Flower
has pointed out, there has always been a tendency to revert to
the four primitive types sketched out by Linnaeus — the Euro-
pean, Asiatic, African, and American, reduced by Cuvier to
three by the omission of the American type. Flower himself
is of opinion " that the primitive man, whatever he may have
been, has, in the course of ages, divaricated into three extreme
types, represented by the Caucasian of Europe, the Mongolian
of Asia, and the Ethiopian of Africa," and " that all existing
individuals of the species can be ranged around these types, or
somewhere or other between them." He therefore adopts as
the basis of his classification the following three types : —
I. The Ethiopian, Negroid, or black type with dark or
nearly black complexion ; frizzly black hair, a head
almost invariably long (dolicho-cephalic) ; a very
broad and flat nose ; moderate or scanty development
of beard ; thick, everted lips ; large teeth ;■ and a
long forearm.
The Negroid type is again sub-divided into four groups,
with only one of which we are concerned here. This is the
Negrito, represented within the Indian Empire by the Anda-
manese enumerated for the first time in the Census of 1901 and
possibly by the Semangs of the jungles of Malacca, some of
whom may have wandered up into the Mergui district of
Burma.* In respect of colour and hair, the Andamanese
closely resemble the Negro, but they have broad heads, their
facial characters are different, and they form a very distinct
group which has not been affected by intermixture with other
races.
II. The Mongolian, Xanthous, or yellow type, with yellow
[* For the physical characteristics of the Semang, see W. W. Skeat, C. O. Blagden,
The Pagan Races of the Malay Peninsula, 1906, Vol. I., p. 19 it set/.]
24 PEOPLE OF INDIA
or brownish complexion. These races have coarse
straight hair without any tendency to curl ; they are
usually beardless or nearly so ; they are mostly
broad-headed ; the face is broad and flat with pro-
jecting cheek-bones ; the nose small, and conspicuously
depressed at the root ; the eyes sunken and the eye-
lids peculiarly formed so as to give the eye itself the
appearance of slanting downwards; the teeth of
moderate size.
The Northern or Mongolo-Altaic group of Mongolians
includes the nomadic races of Central Asia whose influence
on the population of India will be discussed later on. The
Tibetans and Burmese are members of the Southern Mongo-
lian group.
III. The Caucasian, or white type, has usually a fair skin;
hair fair or dark,- soft, straight or wavy; beard fully
developed ; the head-form is long or medium ; the
face narrow; the nose narrow and prominent; the
teeth small and the forearm short.
Following Huxley, Flower divides the Caucasians into two
groups : —
(a) The Xanthochroi or blonde type, with fair hair, light
eyes and fair complexion. They " chiefly inhabit
Northern Europe, but, much mixed with the next
type, they extend as far as Northern Africa and
Afghanistan."
(b) Melanochroi, " with black hair and eyes, and skin of
almost all shades from white to black." Flower
includes in this group not only the great majority of
the inhabitants of Southern Europe, Northern Africa,
and South- West Asia, consisting mainly of the Aryan,
Semitic, and Hamitic families, but also the Dravidians
of India, and the Veddahs of Ceylon.
Here we are confronted at once with the drawbacks which
attend all attempts at systematic arrangement. It is difficult
not to distrust a classification which brings together in the
same category people of such widely diff'erent appearance,
history, and traditions as the modern Greeks and Italians, and
the black, broad-nosed Dravidians of Central and Southern
India. Peschel's arrangement seems to be in closer accord-
ance with the facts established by recent observations. He
divides the Caucasian type into (a) Indo-Germans, (b) Semites,
(c) Hamites or Berbers, and includes the " Hindus " (non-
PHYSICAL TYPES 25
Dravidian Indians) in the first of these groups. The Dravidians
are classed with Sinhalese and Veddahs as people of uncertain
origin. Huxley treats them as Australoid.
In respect of classification the general position in India
is closely parallel to that described above. It ^^^^.^ application
is easy enough to distinguish certain well- to India,
marked types. Our difficulties begin when
we attempt to carry the process of classification further and to
differentiate the minor types or subtypes which have been
formed by varying degrees of intermixture between the main
types. The extremes of the series are sharply defined, but the
intermediate types melt into each other, and it is hard to say
where the dividing line should be drawn. Here measurements
are of great assistance, especially if they are arranged in a
series so as to bring out the relative preponderance of certain
characters in a large number of the members of particular
groups. This is well illustrated by the diagrams in Appen-
dix III., and will be more fully dwelt upon below. We are
further assisted by the remarkable correspondence that may be
observed at the present day in all parts of India, except the
Punjab, between variations of physical type and differences of
grouping and social position. This, of course, is due to the
operation of the caste system, which in its most highly
developed form, the only form which admits conditions
of precise definition, is, I believe, entirely favourable to
confined to India. Nowhere else in the ^^ ropome ry.
world do we find the population of a large continent broken up
into an infinite number of mutually exclusive aggregates, the
members of which are forbidden by an inexorable social law to
marry outside of the group to which they themselves belong.
Whatever may have been the origin and the earlier develop-
ments of caste, this absolute prohibition of mixed marriages
stands forth now as its essential and most prominent character-
istic, and the feeling against such unions is so deeply engrained
in the people that even the theistic and reforming sect of the
Brahmo Samaj has found a difficulty in freeing itself from
the ancient prejudices, while the Lingayats of Western and
Southern India have transformed themselves from a sect into
a caste within recent times. In a society thus organized, a
society putting an extravagant value on pride of blood and the
idea of ceremonial purity, differences of physical type, however
produced in the first instance, may be expected to manifest
a high degree of persistence, while methods which seek to
26 PEOPLE OF INDIA
trace and express such differences find a peculiarly favourable
field for their operations. In this respect India presents a
remarkable contrast to most other parts of the world, where
anthropometry has to confess itself hindered, if not baffled,
by the constant intermixture of types obscuring and confusing
the data ascertained by measurements. Thus in Europe, as
Topinard observes, there is nothing to prevent the union " of
the blonde Kymri with the dark-haired dweller on the Medi-
terranean, of the broad-headed Celt with the long-headed
Scandinavian, of the tiny Laplander with the tall Swede." In
fact, all the recognized nations of Europe are the result of a
process of unrestricted crossing which has fused a number of
distinct tribal types into a more or less definable national type.
In India the process of fusion has long ago been arrested, and
the degree of progress which it had made up to the point
at which it ceased to operate is expressed in the physical
characteristics of the groups which have been formed. There
is consequently no national type and no nation or even nation-
ality in the ordinary sense of these words.
The measurements themselves require a few words of
„^, ^ , explanation, which will be given in as
Shape of the head. , , ^, ^ r ^u u
popular language as the nature oi the sub-
ject permits. The form of the head is ascertained by measuring
in a horizontal plane the greatest length from a definite point
on the forehead (the glabella) to the back of the head, and the
greatest breadth a little above the ears. The proportion of the
breadth to the length is then expressed as a percentage, called
the cephalic index, the length being taken as loo. Heads with
a breadth of 80 per cent, and over are classed as broad or
brachy-cephalic ; those with an index under 80, but not under
75, are called medium heads (meso- or mesati-cephalic) ; long
or dolicho-cephalic heads are those in which the ratio of breadth
to length is below 75 per cent.
It is not contended that these groupings correspond to the
primary divisions of mankind. Long, broad
° ^ ofraoe.* ^^ ^^^ medium heads are met with in varying
degrees of preponderance among the white,
black, and yellow races. But within these primary divisions
the proportions of the head serve to mark off important groups.
Topinard shows how the form expressed by the index separates
the long-headed Scandinavian people from the broad-headed
Celts and Slavs; while the Esquimaux are distinguished on
similar grounds from the Asiatic Mongols, and the Australians
PHYSICAL TYPES 27
from the Negritos. All authorities agree in regarding the
form of the head as an extremely constant and persistent
character, which resists the influence of climate and physical
surroundings, and (having nothing to do with the personal
appearance of the individual) is not liable to be modified by
the action of artificial selection. Men choose their wives
mainly for their faces and figures, and a long-headed woman
offers no greater attractions of external form and colouring
than her short-headed sister. The intermixture of races with
different head-forms will, of course, affect the index, but even
here there is a tendency to revert to the original type when
the influence of crossing is withdrawn. On the whole, there-
fore, the form of the head, especially when combined with
other characters, is a good test of racial affinity. It may be
added that neither the shape nor the size of the head seems to
bear any direct relation to intellectual capacity. People with
long heads cannot be said to be cleverer or more advanced
in culture than people with short heads.
In relation to the rest of Asia, India may be described
as an area of mainly long-headed people
separated by the Himalaya and its off- ^^^^nfndil^"*'^
shoots from the Mongolian country, where
the broad-headed types are more numerous and more pro-
nounced than anywhere else in the world. At either end of
the mountain barrier, broad heads are strongly represented in
Assam and Burma on the east, and in Baluchistan on the west,
and the same character occurs in varying degrees in the Lower
Himalayas and in a belt of country on the west of India
extending from Gujarat through the Deccan to Coorg, the
limits of which cannot at present be defined precisely. In the
Punjab, Rajputana, and the United Provinces, long heads
predominate, but the type gradually changes as we travel
eastwards. In Bihar medium heads prevail on the whole,
while in certain of the Bengal groups a distinct tendency
towards brachy-cephaly may be observed, which shows itself
in the Muhammadans and Chandals of Eastern Bengal, is more
distinctly marked in the Kayasths, and reaches its maximum
development among the Bengal Brahmans. In Peninsular
India south of the Vindhya ranges, the prevalent type seems to
be mainly long-headed or medium-headed, short heads appear-
ing only in the western zone of country referred to above.
But the population of the coast has been much affected by
foreign influence, Malayan or Indo-Chinese on the east, Arab,
28 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Persian, African, European and Jewish on the west, and the
mixed types thus produced cannot be brought under any
general formula.
The proportions of the nose are determined on the same
principle as those of the skull.. The length
the nasal fndex^ ^"^ breadth are measured from certain
specified points, and the latter dimension is
expressed as a percentage of the former.- The nasal index,
therefore, is simply the relation of the breadth of the nose to
its length. If a man's nose is as broad as it is long — no
infrequent case among the Dravidians — his index is loo. The
results thus obtained are grouped in three classes — narrow or
fine noses (leptorrhine) in which the width is less than 70 per
cent, of the length; broad noses (platyrrhine) in which the
proportion rises to 85 per cent, and over, and medium noses
(mesorrhine) with an index of from 70 to 85. The index, as
Topinard points out, expresses with great accuracy the extent
to which the nostrils have been expanded and flattened out or
contracted and refined, the height in the two cases varying
inversely. It thus represents very distinctly the personal
impressions which a particular type conveys to the observer.
The broad nose of the Negro or of the typical Dravidian is his
most striking feature, and the index records its proportions
with unimpeachable accuracy. Where races with different
nasal proportions have intermixed, the index marks the degree
of crossing that has taken place; it records a large range of
variations ; and it enables us to group types in a serial order
corresponding to that suggested by other characters. For
these reasons the nasal index is accepted by all anthropologists
as one of the best tests of racial affinity.
Speaking generally, it may be said that the broad type of nose
„ ^ is most common in Madras, the Central Pro-
Correspondence , ^, . -, 1 , c
with social vmces and Chutia Nagpur ; that nne noses in
groupings. ^^le Strict sense of the term are confined to the
Punjab and Baluchistan, and that the population of the rest of
India tends to fall within the medium class. But the range of the
index is very great. It varies in individual cases from 122 to 53,
and the mean indices of diff"erent groups differ considerably in
the same part of the country. The average nasal proportions
of the Mai Paharia tribe of Bengal are expressed by the figure
94-5, while the pastoral Gujars of the Punjab have an index of
66-9, the Sikhs of 68-8 and the Bengal Brahmans and Kayasths
of 70-4- In other words, the typical Dravidian, as represented
PHYSICAL TYPES 29
by the Mai Paharia, has a nose as broad in proportion to its
length as the Negro, while this feature in the Indo-Aryan
group can fairly bear comparison with the noses of sixty-eight
Parisians, measured by Topinard, which gave an average of
69"4. Even more striking is the curiously close correspondence
between the gradations of racial type indicated by the nasal
index and certain of the social data ascertained by independent
enquiry. If we take a series of castes in Bengal, Bihar, the
United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, or Madras, and arrange
them in the order of the average nasal index, so that the caste
with the finest nose shall be at the top, and that with the
coarsest at the bottom of the list, it will be found that this
order substantially corresponds with the accepted order of
social precedence. Thus in Bihar or the United Provinces the
casteless tribes, Kols, Korwas, Mundas and the like, who have
not yet entered the Brahmanical system, occupy the lowest
place in both series. Then come the vermin-eating Musahars
and the leather-dressing Chamars. The fisher castes, Baud,
Bind, and Kewat, are a trifle higher in the scale ; the pastoral
Goala, the cultivating Kurmi, and a group of cognate castes
from whose hands a Brahman may take water, follow in due'
order, and from them we pass to the trading Khatris, the
landholding Babhans and the upper crust of Hindu society.
Thus, for those parts of India where there is an appreciable
strain of Dravidian blood it is scarcely a paradox to lay down,
as a law of the caste organization, that the social status of the
members of a particular group varies in inverse ratio to the
mean relative width of their noses. Nor is this the only point
in which the two sets of observations — the social and the
physical — bear out and illustrate each other. The character
of the curious matrimonial groupings for which the late
Mr. J. F. McLennan devised the useful term exogamous, also
varies in a definite relation to the gradations of physical type.
Within a certain range of nasal proportions, these sub-divisions
are based almost exclusively on the totem. Along with a
somewhat finer form of nose, groups called after villages and
larger territorial areas, or bearing the name of certain tribal
or communal officials, begin to appear, and above these again
we reach the eponymous saints and heroes who in India, as
in Greece and Rome, are associated with a certain stage of
Aryan progress.
The comparative flatness of the Mongolian face is a peculi-
arity which cannot M\ to strike the mpst casual observer. On
30 PEOPLE OF INDIA
closer examination this characteristic will be seen to be inti-
mately connected with the formation of the
orMtonL°"L°dex. ^heek-bones, the margins of the bony sockets
of the eyes, and the root of the nose. No
precise measurements can be made of the cheek-bones on the
living subject, for it is impossible to fix any definite points
from which the dimensions can be taken. Some years ago,
however, Mr. Oldfield Thomas devised a method of measuring
the relative projection of the root of the nose above the level
of the eye-sockets, which expresses very accurately the degree
of flatness of face met with in different types. It was used
by him for skulls, but it has the great advantage of being
equally applicable to living persons, and at Sir William
Flower's suggestion it has been extensively used in India,
especially among hill tribes and wherever there was reason
to suspect an intermixture of Mongolian blood. The principle
on which it proceeds can be described without resorting to
technical language. Any one who looks at a Gurkha in profile
will readily observe that the root of the nose rises much less
above the level of the eye-sockets than is the case with
■ Europeans or natives of Upper India. The object is to deter-
mine the comparative elevation of the lowest point on the root
of the nose above the plane of the eye-sockets. This is done
by marking a point on the front surface of the outer edge of
each orbit and a third point on the centre of the root of the
nose where it is lowest. The distance between the two orbital
dots is then measured in a direct line and also the distance from
each of these to the dot on the bridge of the nose. The former
dimension represents the base of a triangle, and the latter its
two sides. The index is formed by calculating, the percentage
of the latter dimension on the former. If, as is sometimes the
case, the bridge of the nose is let down so low that it does not
project at all beyond the level of the orbits, the two dimensions
will obviously be of equal length and the index will be loo.
If, on the other hand, the elevation of the bridge of the nose
is marked, the index may be as high as 127 or 130. In the
paper already referred to, which dealt only with skulls, Mr.
Thomas proposed the division of the index into three
classes : —
Platyopic ... ..■ ... ... ... ... below I07'5.
Mesopic ... ... ... ... ... ... io7'5 to iio'o.
Pio-opic ... ... ... ... ... ... above iio'o
The experience gained in India, which extends to a large
PHYSICAL TYPES 31
number of castes and tribes in all parts of the country, has led
me to adopt the following grouping for the living subject : — •
Platyopic ... ... ... ... ... ... below no.
Mesopic ... ... ... ... ... ... iiotoii2"9.
Pro-opic ... ... ... ... ... ... 113 and over.
This brings the Mongoloid people of Assam and the
Eastern Himalayas within the platyopic group, and effectually
differentiates them from the broad-headed races of Baluchistan,
Bombay and Coorg. It also separates the Indo-Aryans from
the Aryo-Dravidians.
Topinard's classification of stature, which is generally
accepted, comprises four groups : — stature in Europe
and India.
Tall statures, 170 cm. (5' 7") and over
Above the average, 165 cm. (5' 5") and under 170 cm. (5' 7")
Below the average, 160 cm. (5' 3") and under 165 c m. (5' 5")
Small statures, under 160 cm. (5' 3")
Much has been written on the subject of the causes which
affect the stature. The general conclusion seems to be that in
Europe the question is a very complicated one, and that the
influence of race is to a great extent obscured by other factors,
such as climate, soil, elevation, food supply, habits of life,
occupation, and natural or artificial selection. Most of these
causes also come into play in India, but not necessarily to the
same extent as in Europe. The influence of city life, which in
civilized countries as a rule tends to reduce the stature and to
produce physical degeneracy, is comparatively small in India,
where from fifty to eighty-four per cent, of the population are
engaged in agriculture and live an outdoor life. Nor are the
conditions of factory industries in India so trying or so likely
to affect growth as in Europe. The operatives do not attend
so regularly nor do they work so hard, and many of them
live in the country for a great part of the year, coming
into the mills only when there is nothing to be done in the
fields. Some of the indigenous hand-loom weavers, how-
ever, show the lowest mean stature yet recorded — a fact
which is probably due to the unwholesome surround-
ings in which they live. In India, as in Europe, the
dwellers in the hills are generally shorter than the people of
the plains, and within the hill region it may in either case
be observed, that the stature is often greater at high than at
moderate altitudes— a fact which has been ascribed to the
32 PEOPLE OF INDIA
influence of a rigorous climate in killing off all but vigorous
individuals. In India the prevalence of malaria in the lower
levels and the less healthy conditions of life would probably
tend to bring about the same result. On the whole, however,
the distribution of stature in India seems to suggest that race
differences play a larger part here than they do in Europe.
The tallest statures are massed in Baluchistan, the Punjab, and
Rajputana; and a progressive decline may be traced down the
valley of the Ganges until the lowest limits are reached among
the Mongoloid people of the hills bordering on Assam. In the
south of India the stature is generally lower than in the plains
of the north. The minimum is found among the Negritos of
the Andaman Islands, whose mean stature is given by Deniker
as 1485 mm. or 4 feet loj inches.
These physical data enable us to divide the people of the
Indian Empire into seven main physical
"^^^ '7^6?''"'°"'^ types, the distribution of which is shown
in the coloured map at the end of this
volume.' If we include the Andamanese, the number of types
is eight, but for our present purpose this tiny group of Negritos
may be disregarded. Curious and interesting as they are from
the point of view of general anthropology, the Andamanese
have had no share in the making of the Indian people. They
survive — a primitive outlier— on the extreme confines of the
Empire to which they belong merely by virtue of the accident
that their habitat has been selected as a convenient location for
a penal settlement. I have, however, thought it worth while
to take this opportunity of publishing the measurements of
200 Andamanese, 100 males and 100 females, which were taken
some years ago by Major Molesworth, i.m.s., then Surgeon at
Port Blair, in the hope that they may be of service to any one
who has the leisure to undertake a monograph on the subject.
The conclusions suggested by Major Molesworth's measure-
ments of living subjects seem to coincide with those arrived
at by the late Sir William Flower from an examination of a
series of forty-eight skulls, and confirmed by Sir William
Turner in the monograph referred to above. These observers
agree in describing the Andamanese as short-headed, and
broad-nosed, with a low cranial capacity. Their heads differ
in essential particulars from those of the Dravidians, and Sir
William Turner considers that no direct evidence of either a
past or a present Negrito population in India has yet been
obtained.
PHYSICAL TYPES 33
Counting from the western frontier of India, we may deter-
mine the following distinctive types : —
I. The Turko-Iranian type, represented by the Baloch,
Brahui, and Afghans of the Baluchistan Agency and the North-
West Frontier Province; probably formed by a fusion of
Turki and Persian elements in which the former predominate.
Stature above mean; complexion fair; eyes mostly dark, but
occasionally grey ; hair on face plentiful ; head broad ; nose
moderately narrow, prominent, and very long.
II.' The Indo-Aryan type, occupying the Punjab, Rajputana,
and Kashmir, and having as its characteristic members the Raj-
puts, Khatris, and Jats. This type approaches most closely to that
ascribed to the traditional Aryan colonists of India. The stature
is mostly tall ; complexion fair ; eyes dark ; hair on face plentiful ;
head long ; hose narrow and prominent, but not specially long.
III. The Scytho-Dravidian type of Western India, com-
prising the Maratha Brahmans, the Kunbis, and the Coorgs ;
probably formed by a mixture of Scythian and Dravidian
elements, the former predominating in the higher groups, the
latter in the lower. The head is broad ; complexion fair ; hair
on face rather scanty ; stature medium ; nose moderately fine
and not conspicuously long.
IV. The Aryo-Dravidian type found in the United Provinces
of Agra and Oudh, in parts of Rajputana, in Bihar and Ceylon,
and represented in its upper strata by the Hindustani Brahman
and in. its lower by the Chamar. Probably the result of the
intermixture, in varying proportions, of the Indo-Aryan and
Dravidian types, the former element predominating in the
lower groups and the latter in the higher. The head-form is
long with a tendency to medium ; the complexion varies from
lightish brown to black; the nose ranges from medium to
broad, being always broader than among the Indo-Aryans ;
the stature is lower than in the latter group, and is usually
below the average by the scale given above.
V. The Mongolo- Dravidian type of Lower Bengal and
Orissa, comprising the Bengal Brahmans and Kayasths the
Muhammadans of Eastern Bengal, and other groups peculiar
to this part of India. Probably a blend of Dravidian and
Mongoloid elements with a strain of Indo-Aryan blood in the
higher groups. The head is broad ; complexion dark ; hair
on face usually plentiful ; stature medium ; nose medium with
a tendency to broad.
VI. The Mongoloid type of the Himalayas, Nepal, Assam,
R, PI 3
34 PEOPLE OF INDIA
and Burma, represented by the Kanets of Lahoul and Kulu,
the Lepchas of Darjeeling, the Limbus, Murmis and Gurungs
of Nepal, the Bodo of Assam, and the Burmese. The head is
broad ; complexion dark with a yellowish tinge ; hair on face
scanty; stature small or below average; nose fine to broad;
face characteristically flat ; eyelids often oblique.
VII. The Dravidian type extending from Ceylon to the
valley of the Ganges and pervading the whole of Madras,
Hyderabad, the Central Provinces, most of Central India, and
Chutia Nagpur. Its most characteristic representatives are the
Paniyans of the South Indian hills and the Santals of Chutia
Nagpur. Probably the original type of the population of India,
now modified to a varying extent by the admixture of Aryan,
Scythian, and Mongoloid elements. In typical specimens the
stature is short or below mean ; the complexion very dark,
approaching black ; hair plentiful with an occasional tendency to
curl; eyes dark; head long; nose very broad, sometimes depressed
at the root, but not so as to make the face appear flat.
Before proceeding to describe the types in further detail,
a few words of preliminary explanation are essential. In the
first place, it must be clearly understood that the areas occupied
by the various types do not admit of being defined as sharply
as they are shown on the map. They melt into each other
insensibly, and although at the close of a day's journey from
one ethnic tract to another, an observer whose attention had
been directed to the subject would realise clearly enough that
the physical characteristics of the people had undergone an
appreciable change, he would certainly be unable ,to say at
what particular stage in his progress the transformation had
taken place. Allowance, therefore, must be made for the
necessary conditions of map-making, and it must not be sup-
posed that a given type comes to an end as abruptly as the
patch of colour which indicates the area of its maximum
prevalence. Secondly, let no one imagine that any type is
alleged to be in exclusive possession of the locality to which
it is assigned. When, for example, Madras is described as a
Dravidian and Bengal as a Mongolo-Dravidian tract, that does
not mean that all the people of Madras and Bengal must of
necessity belong to the predominant type. From time im-
memorial in India a stream of movement has
the scheme. '^^^'^ setting from west to east and from north
to south — a tendency impelling the higher
types towards the territories occupied by the lower. In the
PHYSICAL TYPES 35
course of this movement representatives of the Indo-Aryan
type have spread themselves all over India as conquerors,
traders, landowners, or priests, preserving the original charac-
teristics in varying degrees, and receiving a measure of social
recognition dependent in the main on the supposed purity of
their descent from the original immigrants.* Family and caste
traditions record countless instances of such incursions, and
in many cases the tradition is confirmed by the concurrent
testimony of historical documents and physical characteristics.
Even in the provinces farthest removed from the Indo-Aryan
settlements in North-Western India, members of the upper
castes are still readily distinguishable by their features and
complexion from the mass of the population, and their claims
to represent a different race are thrown into relief by the
definition now for the first time attempted of the types which
predominate in different parts of India. Until the existence of a
lower type has been established, no special distinction is involved
in belonging to a higher one. Thirdly, it may be said that the
names assigned to the types beg the highly speculative question
of the elements which have contributed to their formation.
The criticism is unanswerable. One can but admit its truth,
and plead by way of justification that we must have some
distinctive names for our types, that names based solely on
physical characters are no better than bundles of formulae, and
that if hypotheses of origin are worth constructing at all, one
should not shrink from expressing them in their most telling
form.
The Turko-Iranian type is in practically exclusive possession
of Baluchistan and the North- West Frontier ^ , ^
_ . Til- • ■ TurKO-lraman
Province. Its leadmg characteristics are type.
- the following : —
(i) The head is broad, the mean indices rdtnging from 80 in
the Baloch of the Western Punjab to 85 in the Hazara of
Afghanistan. I put aside as doubtful cases the Hunzas,
Nagars, and Kafirs and the Pathans of the North- Western
Punjab. For the first three the data are scanty, and it is
possible that further enquiry might lead to their inclusion in
the Indo-Aryan type. In the case of the last the individual
indices vary from 69 to 87, and although broad heads
* An effective parallel might be drawn between the predatory invasions of the Rajputs
and the settlements effected by the Normans in Sicily, Southern Italy and Greece. Both
sets of movements arose from similar impulses, both have left unmistakable traces behind,
and both ended in the comparative absorption of the conquering race.
36 PEOPLE OF INDIA
preponderate on the whole, there is a sufficient proportion
of long heads to warrant the suspicion of some mixture of
blood.
(ii) The proportions of the nose (nasal index) are fine or
medium, the average indices running from 67 "8 in the Tarin to
8o'5 in the Hazara. Some of the individual indices are high
and one Hazara attains the remarkable figure of iii. These
abnormalities may probably be accounted for by the importa-
tion of Abyssinian slaves. The proportions of the nose, how-
ever, are less distinctive of the type than its great absolute
length, which varies in individual cases from 56 mm. amang
the Hazaras to 65 among the.Brahui. The one feature indeed
that strikes one in these people is the portentous length of
their noses, and it is probably this peculiarity that has given
rise to the tradition of the Jewish origin of the Afghans. Some
of the Scythian coins exhibit it in a marked degree. As
M. Ujfalvy* has pointed out, the lineaments of Kadphises II
survive in the Dards of to-day, and the remark holds good of
most of the people whom I have ventured to include in the
Turko-Iranian type.
(iii) The mean orbito-nasal index, which measures the
relative flatness of the face, ranges with the Turko-Iranians
from III in the Hazara to 118 in the Baloch, Brahui, and
Dehwar. The highest individual index (131) occurs among the
Pathans of the North-Western Punjab and the lowest (118)
among the Kafirs. The type as a whole is conspicuously pro-
opic, and there are no signs of that depression of the root of
the nose and corresponding flatness of the cheek bones to
which the appearance popularly described as Chinese or
Mongolian is due. In respect of this character the Hazaras
seem to be an exception. In them the individual indices form '
a continuous curve of striking regularity from 103 to 120, and
it is a question whether the tribe ought not to be included
in the Mongoloid type. I prefer, however, to show them as
Turko-Iranian, for it seems possible that they partake of the
elements of both types and represent the points of contact
between the two.
(iv) The average stature varies from 162 in the Baloch of
Makran to 172 to the Achakzai Pathan of Northern Baluchistan.
The figure for the Hazara is 168, which makes for their
inclusion in the Turko-Iranian rather than in the Mongoloid
group; but the subjects measured belonged to one of the
* L'Anthropologie, IX., 407. Mlmoire sur les Huns blancs.
PHYSICAL TYPES 37
regiments at Quetta and were probably rather above the
average stature of the tribe.
The Indo-Atyan type predominates in Rajputana, the Pun-
jab, and the Kashmir valley, though in parts i^do-Aryan type,
of these areas it is associated to a varying
extent with .other elements. It is readily distinguishable from
the Turko-Iranian. Its most marked characteristics may be
summarised as follows : —
(i) The head-form is invariably long, the average index
ranging from 72-4 in the Rajput to 74-4 in the Awan. The
highest individual index (86) is found among the Khatris and
the lowest (64) among the Rajputs. The seriations bring out
very clearly the enormous preponderance of the long-headed
type and present the sharpest contrast with those given for
the Turko-Iranians.
(ii) In respect of the proportions of the nose there is very
little difference between the two types. The Indo-Aryan
index ranges from 66-9 in the Gujar to 75 '2 in the Chuhra,
and there are fewer high individual indices ; but between the
seriations there is not much to choose. On the other hand
the Indo-Aryans, notwithstanding their greater stature, have
noticeably shorter noses than the Turko-Iranians.
(iii) Concerning the orbito-nasal index there is little to be
said. All the members of the Indo-Aryan type are placed by
their average indices within the pro-opic group ; their faces are
free from any suggestion of flatness, and the figures expressing
this character run in a very regular series. The highest index
(ii7'9) occurs among the Rajputs and the lowest (ii3'i)
amongst the Khatris.
(iv) The Indo-Aryans have the highest stature recorded in
India, ranging from i74"8 in the Rajput to 165 '8 in the Arora.
Individual measurements of Rajputs rise to i92'4 and of Jats
(Sikhs) to i90'S. Stature alone, therefore, were other indica-
tions wanting, would serve to differentiate the Indo-Aryan
from the Aryo-Dravidian type of the United Provinces and
Bihar.
The most important points to observe in the Indo-Aryan
series of measurements are the great uniformity of type and
the very slight differences between the higher and the lower
groups. Socially, no gulf can be wider than that which divides
the Rajputs of Udaipur and Milrwar from the scavenging Chuhra
of the Punjab. Physically, the one is cast in much the same
mould as the other; and the difference in mean height which
38 PEOPLE OF INDIA
the seriations disclose is no greater than might easily be
accounted for by the fact that in respect of food, occupation,
and habits of life, the Rajput has for many generations enjoyed
advantages, telling directly on the development of stature, which
circumstances have denied to the Chuhra. Stature we know
to be peculiarly sensitive to external influences of this kind.
Other and more subtle influences re-act upon environment and
tend to modify the type. Sikhism has transformed the despised
Chuhra into the soldierly Mazhabi. Who shall say that military
service might not have the same eff'ect on groups belonging to
the lower social strata of the Punjab, whose physical endow-
ment is hardly inferior to that observed at the top of the scale ?
The Scytho-Dravidian type occurs in a belt of country
on the west of India extending from Gujarat
Seytho-Dravidian ./^ ti- iji. i.
type. to Coorg. It is represented at one extreme
of this belt by the Nagar Brahmans of Gujarat
and at the other by the remarkable people who have given
their name to the little province of Coorg. Excluding the
Katkaris, who really belong to the Dravidian type, the leading
characteristics of the Scytho-Dravidians are the following : —
(i) The head-form ranges from 76*9 in the Deshasth Brah-
mans to 797 in the Nagar Brahmans and 79*9 in the Prabhus
and the Coorgs, while the maximum individual indices rise as
high as 92 with the Maratha Kunbis and the Shenvi Brahmans.
In the case of the three type specimens — the Nagar Brahmans,
the Prabhus, and the Coorgs— the mean index is virtually 80, and
the predominance of the broad-headed type is unmistakable.
The seriations show that the gradation of the type is fairly
regular, and a comparison with the diagrams of the Indo-
Aryans brings out marked diff'erences of head-form, where the
features and complexion taken by themselves would appear to
point to an identical origin. Both indices and maxima are
noticeably lower than among the Turko-Iranians.
(ii) In the proportions of the nose there is nothing much to
remark. The mean indices vary from 72 "o in the Coorg to 819
in the Mahar, the Nagar Brahman giving 73 'i and the Prabhu
75 iS. The length of the nose, whether we look to the averages
or the maxima, is distinctly less than among the Turko-Iranians,
the type most closely allied to the Scytho-Dravidian.
(iii) The mean orbito-nasal index varies from ii3'i in the
Son-Koli to the very high figure of 120 in the Coorg. It
deserves notice, however, that the minimum indices run very
low, and that the range between the highest maximum (132)
PHYSICAL TYPES 39
and the lowest minimum (103) is considerable and points to
some mixture of blood.
(iv) The mean stature varies from 160 in the case of the
Kunbis in 1687 in the Coorgs, and an examination of the figures
will show that it is, on the whole, lower than among the Turko-
Iranians.
The type is clearly distinguished from the Turko-Iranian
by a lower stature, a greater length of head, a higher nasal
index, a shorter nose and a lower orbito-nasal index. All of
these characters, except perhaps the last, may be due to a
varying degree of intermixture with the Dravidians. In the
higher types the amount of crossing seems to have been
slight; in the lower the Dravidian elements are more pro-
nounced, while in the Katkari the long head and wide nose are
conspicuous.
The Aryo-Dravidian or Hindustani type extends from the
eastern frontier of the Punjab to the southern extremity of
Bihar, from which point onwards it melts into the Mongolo-
Dravidian type of Bengal Proper. It occupies the valleys of
the Ganges and Jurhna, and runs up into the
lower levels of the Himalayas on the north '^'^°type^^
and the slopes of the Central Indian plateau
on the south. Its higher representatives approach the Indo-
Aryan type, while the lower members of the group are
in many respects not very far removed from the Dravidians.
The type is essentially a mixed one, yet its characteristics are
readily definable, and no one would take even an upper class
Hindustani for a pure Indo-Aryan, or a Chamar for a genuine
Dravidian. Turning now to details, we find the following
results :—
(i) The head-form is long, with a tendency towards medium.
The average index varies from 72'i in the Kachhi and Koiri of
Hindustan to 76-8 in the Dosadh of Bihar and 767 in the
Babhan. The highest individual index (90) occurs among the
Babhans of Bihar, and the lowest (62) among the Bhars of
Hindustan. But the head-form throws little light upon the
origin and affinities of the type, and would of itself barely
serve to distinguish the Aryo-Dravidian from the Indo-Aryan.
Nor, indeed, would one expect it to do so, for the pure Dra-
vidians are themselves a long-headed race, and the Hindustani
people might well have derived this character from the Dra-
vidian element in their parentage.
(ii) The distinctive feature of the type, the character which
40 PEOPLE OF INDIA
gives the real clue to its origin, and stamps the Aryo-Dravidian
as racially different from the Indo-Aryan, is to be found in
the proportions of the nose. The average index runs in an
unbroken series from 73-0 in the Bhuinhar or Babhan of Hindu-
stan and 73-2 in the Brahman of Bihar to 86 in the Hindustani
Chamar and 887 in the Musahar of Bihar. The order thus
established corresponds substantially with the scale of social
precedence independently ascertained. At the top of the list
are the Bhuinhars, who rank high among the territorial
aristocracy of Hindustan and Bihar ; then come the Brahmans,
followed at a slight but yet appreciable interval by the clerkly
Kayasths with an index of 74*8 ; while down at the bottom the
lower strata of Hindu society are represented by the Chamar,
who tans hides and is credibly charged with poisoning cattle,
and the foul-feeding Musahar who eats pigs, snakes, and
jackals, and whose name is popularly derived from his penchant
for field-rats. The seriations tell the same tale as the averages,
and mark the essential distinction between the Aryo-Dravidian
and Indo-Aryan types. The Hindustani Brahmans, with a
slightly lower mean index than the Chuhras of the Punjab,
have a far larger proportion of the broad noses, which point to
an admixture of Dravidian blood.
(iii) The statistics of height lead to a similar conclusion.
The mean stature of the Aryo-Dravidians ranges from 166
centimetres in the Brahmans and Bhuinhars to 159 in the
Musahar, the corresponding figures in the Indo-Aryan
being I74"8 and 165 'S. The one begins where the other
leaves off.
The Mongolo-Dravidian or Bengali type occupies the delta
of the Ganges and its tributaries from the
Mongolo-Dravidian ^^^^^^^ ^f gj^ar to the Bay of Bengal. It is
one of the most distinctive types in India,
and its members may be recognized at a glance throughout the
wide area where their remarkable aptitude for clerical pursuits
and their keen sense of family obligations have procured them
employment. Within its own habitat the type extends to the
Himalayas on the north and Assam on the east, and probably
includes the bulk of the population of Orissa. The western
limit coincides approximately with the hilly country of Chutia
Nagpur and Western Bengal.
(i) The broad head of the Bengali, of which the mean index
varies from 79^0 in the Brahman to 83 "o in the Rajbail'si Magh,
effectually differentiates the type from the Indo-Aryans or
PHYSICAL TYPES 41
Aryo-Dravidians. The seriation of the cephalic index for the
Brahmans of East Bengal is very regular in its gradations, and
presents a striking contrast with the corresponding diagrams
for the Hindustani Brahmans and the Rajput. Here, as else-
where, the inferences as to racial affinity suggested by the
measurements are in entire accord with the evidence afforded
by features and general appearance. For example, it is a
matter of common knowledge that the Rajbansi Magh of
Chittagong, who is in great demand as a cook in European
households in India and usually prospers exceedingly, re-
sembles the upper class Bengali of Eastern Bengal so closely
that it takes an acute observer to tell the difference between
the two.
(ii) The mean proportions of the nose range from 70"3 in
the Brahmans and-Kayasths to 847 in the Mais of Western
Bengal and 80 in the Kochh. The number of high individual
indices brings out the contrast with the Indd-Aryans, and
points to the infusion of Dravidian blood. In the Brahman
seriation the finer forms predominate, and it is open to any one
to argue that, notwithstanding the uncompromising breadth of
the head, the nose-form may, in their case, be due to the remote
strain of Indo-Aryan ancestry to which their traditions bear
witness.
(iii) The stature varies from 167 in the Brahmans of Western
Bengal to 159 in the Kochh of the Sub-Himalayan region.
The seriations of the Kochh deserve special notice for the
indications which they give of the two elements that have
combined to form the Mongolo-Dravidian type. In writing
about them fifteen years ago I ventured, on the evidence then
available, to describe them as a people of Dravidian stock who,
being driven by pressure from the west into the swamps and
forests of Northern and North-Eastern Bengal, were there
brought into contact wit^h the Mongoloid races of the Lower
Himalayas and the Assam border, with the result that their
type was affected in a varying degree by intermixture with
these races. On the whole, however, I thought that Dravidian
characteristics predominated among them over Mongolian.
My conclusions, which coincided in the main with those of
Colonel Dalton and other observers, have been questioned by
Lieutenant-Colonel Waddell, c.b., c.i.e., in.a paper on the Tribes
of the Brahmaputra Valley* Colonel Waddell, who has observed
* J. A. S. B., Vol. LXIX., Part III., 190. [Major A. Playfair, The Garos, 1909,
pp. 1^ et seg.l
43 PEOPLE OF INDIA
and measured the Kochh both in North-Eastern Bengal and in
Assam, denies their Dravidian origin, and describes them as
" distinctly Mongoloid though somewhat heterogeneous." For
purposes of comparison I have included both his imeasurements
and my own in the same diagram. As regards the head-form
and the stature, the two sets of observations are practically
identical. In the case of the nose. Colonel Waddell's data
show a far higher proportion of broad noses than mine, and
clearly point to a strong Dravidian element. On the other
hand, the orbito-nasal index exhibits, though in a less degree,
some distinctive Mongoloid characteristics. One can ask for
no better illustration of the efficacy of the method of anthro-
pometry in its application to a mixed or transitional type than
the fact that, while two independent observers have formed
different opinions as to the relative preponderance of its com-
ponent elements, the data obtained by them from two distinct
series of individuals correspond to the remarkable extent
indicated by the Kochh diagram. There is, of course, no real
conflict of opinion between Colonel Waddell and myself The
whole question turns upon the point of view of the observer.
Take the Kochh in Dinajpur and Rangpur, and they strike you
as in the main Dravidian ; travel further east, and include in
your survey the cognate Kachari of Assam, and there is no
mistaking the fact that Mongoloid characteristics predominate.
The same may be said of the Bengali type as a whole. In
Western Bengal the Dravidian element is prominent ; in Dacca
and Mymensingh the type has undergone a change, which
scientific methods enable us to assign to the effect of inter-
course with a Mongolian race.
On its northern and eastern frontier India marches with the
Mongoloid type. S'"^^^ Mongolian region of the earth. The
effect of this contact with an almost exclu-
sively broad-headed population is indicated in yellow on the
map, and a glance will show Kow the area within which this
particular foreign influence has impressed itself upon India
widens gradually from west to east. The Punjab and Hindu-
stan are left virtually untouched ; the Bengalis exhibit a type
sensibly modified in the direction of Mongolian characters ;
the Assamese are unmistakably Mongoloid, and in Burma the
only non-Mongolian elements are the result of recent immigra-
tion from India. This condition of things is of course mainly
due to the intervention of the great physical barrier of the
Himalayas, "the human equator of the earth," as an American
PHYSICAL TYPES 43
anthropologist* has called it, which throughout its length
offers an impassable obstacle to the southward extension of
the Mongolian races. But other causes also enter in. No one
who is acquainted with the population of the Lower Himalayas
can have failed to observe that in the west there has been a
substantial intermixture of Indo-Aryan elements, while in the
east the prevailing type down to the verge of the plains is
exclusively Mongoloid. The reason seems to be that the war-
like races of the Punjab and Hindustan invaded the pleasant
places of the hills and conquered for themselves the little
kingdoms which once extended from the Kashmir valley to
the eastern border of Nepal. The Dogras or Hill Rajputs of
Kangra, and the Khas of Nepal form the living record of these
forgotten enterprises. Further east the conditions were re-
versed,-neither Bengalis nor Assamese have any stomach for
fighting ; they submitted tamely to the periodical raids of the
hill people, and the only check upon the incursions of the
latter was their inability to stand the heat of the plains. They
occupied, however, the whole of the lower ranges and held the
Duars or " gates " of Bhutan until dispossessed by us. Thus
in the Eastern Himalayas none of the plains people made good
a footing within the hills, which remain to this day in the
exclusive possession of races of the Mongoloid type.
The summaries of measurements given in the appendix
relate to a fairly large number of subjects and the type is
distinct.
(i) The prevalent head-form is broad, but the mean indices
show some remarkable departures from this type. The Jaintia
index is 72-9, thus falling within the long-headed category, and
several tribes have indices between 75 and 80. These low
indices are, however, based upon a comparatively small number
ol subjects, and it seems not unlikely that a larger series of
measurements may sensibly modify the average. In any case
a great deal of work will have to be done before we are in a
position to determine the probable affinities of the numerous
Mongoloid tribes who inhabit the hiHy region between India
and China.
(ii) The nose-form appears at first sight to show a great
range of variations, but on closer examination it will be seen
that the higher indices are for the most part confined to tribes
for which the data are scanty. In the larger groups the mean
index ranges from 67-2 for the Lepchas to 84-5 for the Chakmas
* Ripley. The Races of Europe, p. 45.
44 PEOPLE OF INDIA
and 86-3 for the Khasias; the Tibetans (73-9) and the Murmis
(75 "2) falling between these extremes. The highest mean index
(95 '0 occurs among the Mande or Garo, in one of whom,
according to Lieutenant-Colonel Waddell, the width of the
nose exceeds its height to an extent indicated by the surprising
ratio of 117. But only 34 Garos have been measured, and
looking to the possibilities of crossing one can scarcely regard
the figures as conclusive. On the measurements given in the
table there may be some question whether the Mande should
not be classed as Mongolo-Dravidian, and this view may be
thought to derive some support from Buchanan's description
of them as a wild section of the Kochh.*
(iii) Under the head of stature there is nothing much to
remark. The Gurungs (169-8) are the tallest and the Miris
(156-4) the shortest of the tribes included in the table. The
106 Tibetans show an average of 163-3, which may be regarded
as fairly typical. The tallest individuals (176) are found among
the Tibetans and Murmis ; the shortest (141) are the Khambus
and the Khasias.
(iv) The characteristic orbito-nasal index, which measures
the relative flatness or prominence of the root of the nose and
the adjacent features, yields singularly uniform results. The
average varies in the large groups, which alone are worth con-
sidering, from io6'4 in the Chakma to 109-1 in the Tibetan.
For the Lepchas Lieutenant-Colonel Waddell's observations
yield a mean index of 105-8, with a maximum of 119 and a
minimum of 92, against my average of ioi-8 ranging from 133
to 103. As my figures relate to a larger number of subjects
(57 against 36), I have selected them in preference to his for
inclusion in the diagram showing seriation. A glance at the
diagrams given for the Lepchas of Darjeeling and the Chakmas
of the Hill Tracts of Chittagong will show how regularly the
gradations of the indices are distributed, and will bring out
better than any description the correspondences and diver-
gences of type.
The Dravidian race, the most primitive of the Indian
peoples, occupies the oldest geological for-
Dravidiantype. nation in India, the medley of forest-clad
ranges, terraced plateaux, and undulating plains which stretches,
roughly speaking, from the Vindhyas to Cape Comorin. On
the east and west of the peninsular area the domain of the
Dravidian is conterminous with the Ghats ; while farther north
[* In M. Martin, Eastern India, iii., 1838, p. 538, et seq.l
PHYSICAL TYPES 45
it reaches on one side to the Aravallis and on the other to the
Rajmahal hills. Where the original characteristics have been
unchanged by contact with Indo-Aryan or Mongoloid people
the type is remarkably uniform and distinctive. Labour is the
birthright of the pure Dravidian, and as a coolie he is in great
demand wherever one meets him. Whether hoeing tea in
Assam, the Duars and Ceylon, planting sugar-cane in far
Fiji, cutting rice in the swamps of Eastern Bengal, or doing
scavenger's work in the streets of Calcutta, Rangoon, and
Singapore, he is recognizable at a glance by his black skin, his
squat figure and the negro-like proportions of his nose. In the
upper strata of the vast social deposit which is here treated as
Dravidian these typical characteristics tend to thin out and
disappear, but even among them traces of the original stock
survive in varying degrees. We must look to the researches
of Mr. Thurston,* who is conducting the ethnographic survey
of Southern India, to define and classify the numerous sub-
types thus established and to determine the causes which have
given rise to them.
Turning now to the actual measurements we find the
following specific characters :—
(i) The head-form is usually medium .with a tendency in
the direction of length. The mean indices range in Southern
India from 717 in the Badaga of the Nilgiris and 72-9 in
the Kadir of the Anamalai Hills to 76'6 in the Shanans of
Tinnevelly. The Tiyans (73), Nayars (73-2), Cheruman (73-4),
Palli (73), Parayan or Pariah (73-6), Irula (73-1) and^ several
others also fall well within the long-headed group. In Chutia
Nagpur, on the other hand, the type is uniformly medium.
Among the large groups the Chik (73-8), the Mufida (74-5), the
Male (74-8), the Kharia (74-5), and the Korwa (74-4) are just
included in the long-headed division ; while for all the others
the mean index ranges about 75 and ^6. In this part of India
the physical conformation of the country, the vast stretches of
fever-haunted jungle, the absence of roads, and the compact
tribal organization and independent spirit of the Dravidian
races have tended to preserve them singularly free from the
intrusion of foreign influence, and for these reasons I believe
that their measurements may be taken as fairly typical. The
sedation given for the Santals shows how regularly the indivi-
dual indices are graduated.
(ii) In Southern India the mean proportions of the nose
[* Castes and Tribes of Southern India, 1909, vol. i., Intro., p. xxxvii, et seq.'\
46 PEOPLE OF INDIA
vary from 6g'i in the Lambadis of Mysore, and 73"! in the
Vellalas of Madras to 95* i in the Paniyans of Malabar. In
Chutia Nagpur and Western Bengal the range of variation is
less marked, and the mean indices run from 82 "6 in the Kurmi
of Manbhum in a gradually ascending series to 94^5 in the Male
of the Santal Parganas. The Asur figure of 95*9 may be left
out of account as it relates only to two subjects. In both
regions the mean proportions of the nose correspond in the
main to the gradations of social precedence, and such diver-
gencies as occur admit of being plausibly accounted for. At
the head of the physical series in Southern India stand the
Lambadi with a mean index of 69'!. They do not employ the
local Brahmans as priests, and their touch is held to convey
ceremonial pollution. But there is reason to believe that they
are a nomadic people from Upper India, and that their social
rank is low merely because they have not been absorbed in the
social system of the South. Next come the Vellalas, the great
cultivating caste of the Tamil country, with a mean index of
73'i. They are classed as Sai or pure Sudras ; the Brahmans
who serve them as priests will take curds and butter from
their hands and will cook in any part of their houses. The
Tamil Brahmans themselves belong, indeed, to a lower physical
type; but their mean index of 767 has probably been affected
by the inclusion in the group of some tribal priests, who
obtained recognition as Brahmans when their votaries in-
sensibly became Hindus. Then follow the Palli (77"9), a large
group mainly employed in agriculture, who claim twice-born
rank and "frequently describe themselves as Agnikula or fire-
born Kshatriyas. Low down in the social as in the physical
scale are the Paraiyan or Pariah, with an index of 80, whose
mere vicinity pollutes, but whose traditions point to the
probability that their status was not always so degraded as
we find it at the present day. This conjecture derives some
support from the fact that the Kadir, Mukkuvan and Paniyan
with substantially broader noses yet take higher social rank.
(iii) Among the Dravidians of Southern India the mean
stature ranges from 170 in the Shanan of Tinnevelly to 153 in
the Pulaiyan of Travancore ; and individual measurements vary
from i82'8 in the former group to 143-4 in the latter. Mr.
Thurston has drawn my attention to the well-marked correla-
tion between stature and the proportions of the nose which is
brought out by the following statement : —
PHYSICAL TYPES . 47
Mean stature. Mean nasal index.
Agamudaiyan
165-8
74-2
Badaga
164-1
75-6
Tiyaii
163-7
75
Tamil Brahman
162-5
76-7
Palli
162-5
77"3
Tamil Parayan
162-1
80
Irula
159-9
80-4
Kadir
" 1577
89-8
Paniyan
IS7
9S-I
In Chutia Nagpur and Western Bengal the stature is more
uniform, varying from 1627 in the Oraon of Ranchi to 1577 in
the Mai Paharia and Male of the Santal Parganas, and the
correlation with the proportions of the nose, though traceable,
is less distinct.
The origins of these types are hidden in the mist which
veils the remote era of the Aryan advance
into India. Within that dim region evidence ^"^'""^ of types,
is sought for in vain. Our only guides are tradition and con-
jecture, aided by the assumption, which the history of the East
warrants us in making, that in those distant ages types were
formed by much the same processes as those that we find in
operation to-day. Such are our materials for a study of the
evolution of the Indian people. At the best the picture can
present but shadowy outlines. All that can be demanded of
it is that it should accord in the main with the scanty data
furnished by what passes for history in India, and at the same
time should offer a consistent and plausible explanation of the
ethnic conditions which prevail at the present time.
The oldest of the seven types is probably the Dravidian.
Their low stature, black skin, long heads, broad noses, and
relatively long fore-arm distinguish them from the rest of
the population, and appear at first sight to confirm Huxley's
surmise that they may be related to the aborigines of Australia.
Linguistic affinities, especially the resemblance between the
numerals in Mundari and in certain Australian dialects, and
the survival of some abortive forms of the boomerang in
Southern India, have been cited in support of this view, and
an appeal has also been made to Sclater's hypothesis of a
submerged continent of Lemuria, extending from Madagascar
to the Malay Archipelago, and linking India with Africa on the
one side and Australia on the other. But Sir William Turner's
comparative study of the characters of Australian and Dravidian
crania has not led him to the conclusion that these data can be
adduced in support of the theory of the unity of the two peoples.
48 PEOPLE OF INDIA
The facts which cast doubt on the Australian affinities of the
Dravidians finally refute the hasty opinion which seeks to
associate them with the tiny, broad-headed, and woolly-haired
Negritos of the Andamans and the Philippines. This is the
last word of scientific authority, and here we might leave the
Dravidian subject, were it not that another theory of
the origin of the Dravidians was adopted by
Sir William Hunter in the account of the non-Aryan races of
India given by him in The Indian Empire. According to this view
there are two branches of the Dravidians — the Kolarians speak-
ing dialects allied to Mundari, and the Dravidians proper whose
languages belong to the Tamil family. The former entered
India from the north-east and occupied the northern portion of
the Vindhya table-land. There they were conquered and split
into fragments by the main body of Dravidians, who found
their way into the Punjab through the north-western passes
and pressed forward towards the south of India. The basis of
this theory is obscure. Its account of the Dravidians seems to
rest upon a supposed affinity between the Brahui dialect of
Baluchistan and the languages of Southern India ; while the
hypothesis of the north-eastern origin of the Kolarians depends
on the fancied recognition of Mongolian characteristics among
the people of Chutia Nagpur. But in the first place the dis-
tinction between Kolarians and Dravidians is purely linguistic
and does not correspond to any differences of physical type.
Secondly, it is extremely improbable that a large body of very
black and conspicuously long-headed types should have come
from the one region of the earth which is peopled exclusively
by races with broad heads and yellow complexions. With this
we may dismiss the theory which assigns a trans-Himalayan
origin to the Dravidians. Taking them as we find them now
it may safely be said that their present geographical distribu-
tion, the marked uniformity of physical characters among the
more primitive members of the group, their animistic religion,
their distinctive languages, their stone monuments and their
retention of a primitive system of totemism justify us in regard-
ing them as the earliest inhabitants of India of whom we have
any knowledge.
Upon the interminable discussions known as the Aryan
The indo-Aryan controversy there is no need to enter here,
type. Its non- Whether anything that can properly be de-
Indian origin, scribed as an Aryan race ever existed ;
whether the heads of its members were long, according to
PHYSICAL TYPES 49
Penka, or short according to Sergi ; whether its original habitat
was Scandinavia, the Lithuanian steppe, South-Eastern Russia,
Central Asia, or India itself, as various authorities have held ;
or again whether the term Aryan is anything more than a
philological expression denoting the heterogeneous group of
peoples whose languages belong to the Aryan family of speech
— these are questions which may for our present purpose be
left unanswered. We are concerned merely with the fact that
there exists in the Punjab and Rajputana at the present day, a
definite physical type, represented by the Jats and Rajputs,
which is marked by a relatively long (dolicho-cephalic) head ;
a straight, finely cut (leptorrhine) nose ; a long, symmetrically
narrow face ; a well-developed forehead, regular features, and
a high facial angle. The stature is high and the general build
of the figure is well proportioned, being relatively massive in
the Jats and relatively slender in the Rajputs. Throughout
the group the predominant colour of the skin is a very light
transparent brown, with a tendency towards darker shades in
the lower social strata. Except among the Meos and Minas of
Rajputana, where a strain of Bhil blood may perhaps be dis-
cerned, the type shows no signs of having been modified by
contact with the Dravidians ; its physical characteristics are
remarkably uniform; and the geographical conditions of its
habitat tend to exclude the possibility of intermixture with the
black races of the south. In respect of their social characters
the Indo-Aryans, as I have ventured to call them, are equally
distinct from the bulk of the Indian people. They have not
wholly escaped the contagion of caste ; but its bonds are less
rigid among them than with the other Indian races ; and the
social system retains features which recall the more fluid
brganization of the tribe. Marriage in_ particular is not re-
stricted by the hard and fast limits which caste tends to impose,
but is regulated within large groups by the principle of hyper-
gamy or ' marrying up ' which was supposed to govern the
connubial relations of the four original classes (varna) in the
system described by Manu. Even now Rajputs and Jats
occasionally intermarry, the Rajputs taking wives from the
Jats, but refusing to give their own maidens in return. What
is the exception to-day is said to have been the rule in earlier
times. In short, both social and physical characters are those
of a comparatively homogeneous community which has been
but little affected by crossing with alien races.
The uniformity of the Indo-Aryan type can be accounted
R, PI 4
so PEOPLE OF INDIA
for only by one of two hypotheses, (i) that its members were
The mode of its indigenous to the Punjab, (2) that they
entry into India. entered India in a compact body or in a
continuous stream of families from beyond
the north-west frontier. It is clear that they could not have come
by sea, and equally clear that they could not have found their
way into India round the Eastern end of the Himalayas. The
theory that the Punjab was the cradle of the Aryan race was
propounded by a writer in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society* about fifty years ago, on the basis of some rather
crude linguistic speculations ; but it met with no acceptance,
and the opinion of European scholars from Von Schlegel down
to the present time is unanimous in favour of the foreign origin
of the Indo-Aryans. The arguments appealed to are mainly
philological. Vedic literature, indeed, as Zimmer t admits,
throws but scanty light upon the subject, for no great weight
can be laid upon the identification of the River Rasa with the
Araxes, the name by which the Jaxartes was known to Hero-
dotus. Following authority, however, we may assume for our
present purpose that the ancestors of the Indo-Aryans came
into India from the north-west, and that at the time of their
arrival the peninsula, as far as the valley of the Ganges and
Jumna, was in the possession of the Dravidians. The only
indication of the latter people having extended further to the
west, is to be found (as has been mentioned already) in the
survival of Brahui, an island of supposed Dravidian speech,
among the Iranian languages of Baluchistan. But the present
speakers of Brahui are certainly not Dravidians by race ; and
we find no traces of Dravidian blood among the Indo-Aryans
of to-day. It seems probable, therefore, that when the Indo-
Aryans entered the Punjab they brought their own women
with them, and were not reduced to the necessity of capturing
Dravidian brides. On no other supposition can we explain the
comparative purity of their type.
Now, if the physical and social conditions of the Indian
Borderland had been the same in those remote ages as we find
them at the present day, it is difficult to see how the slow
advance of family or tribal migration could have proceeded on
a scale large enough to result in an effective occupation of the
Punjab. The frontier strip itself, a mere tangle of barren hills
and narrow valleys, is ill-adapted to serve as an officina gentium ;
* y. R. A. S., XVI., 172-200.
t Zimmer, AlHndisches Lebeii, pp. 15 and loi.
PHYSICAL TYPES Si
while a pastoral people, moving by clans or families from
more favoured regions further west, would have found their
way barred by obstacles which only the strongest members of
the community could have surmounted. The women and
children must have been left behind or they would have
perished by the way. Again, given the present rainfall and
climate of the countries adjacent to India, where should we
find to-day, within a measurable distance of the frontier, the
favoured region that would give off the swarm of emigrants
required to people the Punjab? Surely not in south-eastern
Persia, with its inhospitable deserts of shifting sand ; nor on
the dreary Central Asian steppes where only a scanty nomadic
population finds a meagre subsistence. But is it certain that
during the three or four thousand years that may have elapsed
since the Aryans began to press forward into India the climate
of the countries through which they passed may not have
undergone a material change ? There is an appreciable amount
of evidence, the value of which I am anxious not to overrate,
in favour of this supposition. The late Mr. W. T. Blanford,
writing in 1873,* thought it probable that the rainfall both in
Central Asia and Persia had fallen off greatly in modern times,
and that owing mainly to this cause, and in a less degree to the
destruction of trees and bushes, the climate had become per-
ceptibly drier, cultivation had fallen off and the population had
greatly declined in numbers. Nearly thirty years later, we
find Mr. Blanford's views confirmed and developed by Mr. E.
Vredenburg in his geological sketch of the Baluchistan Desert
and part of Eastern Persia.! Mr. Vredenburg applies to the
problem the known principles of physical geography and
shows how, given a dwindling rainfall in a tract situated like
Eastern Persia and Baluchistan, evaporation is bound to pro-
duce the present condition of perennial drought. As the rain-
fall declines fertile plains relapse into deserts ; lakes are trans-
formed into hideous salt marshes; the springs in the hills dry
up and an era of desolation sets in. No human agency, how-
ever corrupt, no mere misgovernment, however colossal, could
bring about such widespread disaster. The village communi-
ties, give them but earth and water, would outlast the con-
queror and the marauder, as they have done in India. The
forces of nature alone could defeat their patient industry. It is
the great merit of Mr. Vredenburg's paper that it indicates the
* Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc, XXIX. (1873).
t Mem. Geol. Survey of India, XXXI., Pt. 2.
52 PEOPLE OF INDIA
true cause of the facts observed and exposes the fallacy of the
belief, countenanced by a long series of travellers, that oriental
inertia and corruption are solely or chiefly answerable for the
present condition of Baluchistan. In illustration of the state
of things which must have existed in some former age, he tells
us how in the desolate valleys of the State of Kharan there
exist hundreds of stone walls, known locally as gorbands or
"dams of the infidels," which mark the edges of ancient
terraced fields, and retain even now remnants of soil which
once was cultivated. A legend still survives that the builders
of these walls carried the earth in bags on their backs from the
alluvial desert on the south, a form of labour which the indolent
Baloch would regard as degrading to the dignity of a man.
Toil of this sort, whether the soil was transported by beasts of
burden or by men, can only have been undertaken in the certain
hope of a substantial return. No one would construct fields in
a rainless wilderness of ravines, or build walls which have
lasted for centuries to retain water where water there was
none. Nor is it likely that the cultivation was confined to the
hills. Arguing from what one sees in India, it seems far more
likely that these terraced fields represent the overflow of a
flourishing agricultural community driven up into the hills by
the pressure of population in the plains. Gradually as the
climate changed, the level alluvial tracts, deprived of rainfall,
lapsed into desert ; the bulk of the population drifted on into
the Punjab, while those who remained behind turned their
ploughshares into swords and eked out by pillage the meagre
livelihood to be won from patches of soil in the hills. Last of
all, the springs on which this scanty cultivation depended
shrank and disappeared, till nothing was left but the stone
walls to recall the labours of the forgotten people who built
them.
The picture which these observations enable us to construct
of a country of great lakes and fertile plains extending from
the centre of Persia to the western confines of India, or let us
say from the Dasht-i-Kavir in western Khorasan to the deserts
of Registan and Kharan, may help to throw light upon the
problem of the Indo-Aryan advance into the Punjab. The
population of such a tract, as they began to press on their own
means of subsistence or were pushed forward by incursions
from the west, would naturally have moved on by tribes and
families, without any disturbance of their social order, and
would have occupied the valley of the Indus. Arriving there
PHYSICAL TYPES S3
as an organized society, like the children of Israel when they
entered Palestine, they would have had no need and no
temptation to take to themselves any Dravidian daughters of
Heth, and they would have preserved their type as distinct
as we find it in the Punjab to-day. The movement must, of
course, have been gradual and must have extended over many
centuries, during which time the climate continued to dry up
and the possibilities of agriculture to decline. When the new
conditions had become fully established the north-western
frontier of India was closed to the slow advance of family or
tribal migration and remained open only to bands of fighting
men or adventurous nomads, who could force their way
through long zones of waterless deserts ending in a maze
of robber-haunted hills. Armed invasion took the place of
peaceful colonization. But the invaders, however great their
strength, could in any case bring relatively few women in their
train. This indeed is the determining factor both of the
ethnology and of the history of India. As each wave of
conquerors, Greek, Scythian, Arab, Moghal, that entered the
country by land became more or less absorbed in the in-
digenous population, their physique degenerated, their indi-
viduality vanished, their energy was sapped, and dominion
passed from their hands into those of more vigorous successors.
Ex Occidente Imperium; the genius of Empire in India has come
to her from the West ; and can be maintained only by constant
infusions of fresh blood from the same source.
The scanty glimpses that are obtained of the history of this
region in the distant past bear out the conclusions of the
scientific observer. Three hundred years before the Christian
era, Alexander's lieutenant Krateros conducted half of the army
which had invaded India, consisting of some fifty thousand
men encumbered with elephants, invalids and heavy baggage,
from Quetta to Kandahar and thence by the Helmund Valley
to Narmashir in Seistan. The route which he followed crossed
the southern end of the Dasht-i-Lut or Desert of Desolation,
and traversed nearly two hundred miles of what is now an
absolute waste "either waterless or supplied with the most
brackish wells." * Arrian's account of the march makes no
mention of disaster, and Krateros appears to have joined
Alexander without any material loss either of elephants or
invalids. Strabo again, who described Kirman about 20 b.c. in
* Explorations in Turkestan, with an Accotmt of the Basin of Eastern Persia and
Seistan. Expedition of 1903, under the direction of Raphael Pumpelly ; Washington, 1901;-
54 PEOPLE OF INDIA
a treatise on geography for the use of Roman administrators,
speaks of it as a fertile and well-wooded country watered by
rivers and producing everything.
Yet when Major Sykes passed through a part of the same
tract in 1893-94 he found it covered with ancient ruins and had
difficulty in procuring forage for the camels of his small party
numbering only about twenty men. Clearly the whole face of
the country must have been transformed in the interval. Was
this the work of nature or of man? Has the disappearance of
the population been brought about by physical causes, such as
diminished rainfall, the shifting of river courses, the inroads
of wind-driven sand, and the shrinking of the crust of the
earth ? Or need we look no further than the familiar incidents
of Oriental misgovernment — incessant wars, general lawless-
ness, official corruption and neglect of natural resources ? To
these questions an answer is supplied by Mr. Ellsworth
Huntington's paper on the Basin of Eastern Seistan and
Persia, which forms part of the report of the explorations
conducted in Turkestan and Persia in 1903 with the support
of the Carnegie Institution of Washington.* Here it is shown
that the main cause of the desolation now prevailing is the
aridity of the climate due to the high mountains which "on
every side shut out the moisture of the sea and shut in the
people." Ever since the end of the Tertiary era the geological
history of the country has been marked by a series of epochs
of "prolonged rivers and expanded lakes," alternating with
epochs when the rivers were curtailed and the lakes con-
tracted ; while throughout the period earth-movements have
taken place tending to elevate the barren hills and extend their
area and to reduce both the size and the productive capabilities
of the habitable basins which they enclose. By the side of
these overwhelming physical forces the influence of mere
human agencies, such as foreign invasions and native mis-
government, sinks into insignificance. The argument is
[* See his "The Pulse of Asia," 1907, chap, xvi., p. 315, et seq. In a lecture
delivered by Professor J. W. Gregory to the Royal Geographical Society on December 8,
1913 (The Times, December 9, 1913), after a survey of the conditions in Africa, Asia, and
America, he observed that, owing to the varied nature of the evidence to be considered, the
extensive and scattered literature whence much of that evidence had to be gleaned, and the
contradictory opinions expressed by high authorities, the problem whether the earth was
drying up was hedged about with difficulties. Archseological and historical evidence showed
that Central Asia and even the coasts of Persia and Baluchistan had a very arid climate in
the earliest times of which we had human record. Though it must be admitted that, while
there was a strong balance of opinion in favour of the view that aridity was being still
increased, there were weighty authorities on the other side.]
PHYSICAL TYPES SS
clinched by the effective comparison which Mr. Huntington
draws between the four provinces of Khorasan, Azerbaijan,
Kirman and Seistan, all of which are equally badly governed.
The two former have been devastated by repeated invasions
of the most savage character, but they enjoy a relatively
abundant rainfall; the two latter have suffered less severely
from war, but are afflicted by more or less permanent drought.
Khorasan and Azerbaijan are the most populous and flourish-
ing provinces of Persia; Seistan and Kirman have been de-
populated almost beyond hope of recovery. In Persia, as in
India, nature is stronger than man.
For the origin of the Aryo-Dravidian type we need not
travel beyond the ingenious hypothesis put ,j^^ Aryo-Dravi-
forward by Dr. Hoernle twenty-six years ago dians : Dr.Hoernie's
and confirmed by the recent researches of * ®°^'
Dr. Grierson's Linguistic Survey. This theory supposes that
after the first swarm of Indo-Aryans had occupied the Punjab,
a second wave of Aryan-speaking people, the remote ancestors
of the Aryo-Dravidians of to-day, impelled by some ethnic
upheaval, or driven forward by the change of climate in Central
Asia to which we have referred above, made their way into
India through Gilgit and Chitral and established themselves in
the plains of the Ganges and Jumna, the sacred Middle-land
{Madhyadesa) of Vedic tradition. Here they came in contact
with the Dravidians ; here by the stress of that- contact, caste
was evolved; here the Vedas were composed, and the whole
fantastic structure of orthodox ritual and usage was built up.
For the linguistic evidence in favour of this view I must refer
the reader to Dr. Grierson's chapter on language in the Report
on the Census of India, 1901. For my present purpose it is
sufficient to note that the record of physical characters bears
out the conclusions suggested by philology. The type of the
people now dwelling in the Middle-land is precisely what
might have been expected to result from the incursion of a fair
long-headed race, travelling by a route which prevented women
from accompanying them, into a land inhabited by dark-skinned
Dravidians. The men of the stronger race took to themselves
the women of the weaker, and from these unions was evolved
the mixed type which we find in Hindustan and Bihar. The
degree of intermixture varied to the extent indicated in the
tables of measurements ; at one end of the scale the type
approaches the Indo-Aryan, at the other it almost merges in
the Dravidian.
56 PEOPLE OF INDIA
It may be said that the theory of a second wave of Aryans,
resting as it does on the somewhat uncertain data of philology,
is not really required for the purpose of explaining the facts.
Why should we not content ourselves by assuming that the
original Indo-Aryans outgrew their settlements on the Indus
and threw off swarms of emigrants who passed down the
Ganges valley, modifying their type as they went by alliances
with the Dravidian inhabitants? But on this view of the
problem it is difficult to account for the marked divergence of
type that distinguishes the people of the Eastern Punjab from
the people of Western Hindustan. If there had been no second
and distinct incursion coming in like a wedge behind the
original colonists, no such sharp contrast would now be dis-
cernible. One type would melt into the other by imperceptible
gradations, and scientific observation and popular impressions
would riot concur, as they do, in affirming that a marked change
takes place somewhere about the longitude of Sirhind — a name
which itself preserves the tradition of an ethnic frontier. Nor
is this the only point in favour of Dr. Hoernle's hypothesis.
That theory further explains how it is that the Vedic hymns
contain no reference to the route by which the Aryans entered
India or to their earlier settlements on the Indus ; and it
accounts for the antagonism between the eastern and western
sections and for the fact that the latter were regarded as com-
parative barbarians by the more cultured inhabitants of the
Middle-land.
When we leave Bihar and pass on eastward into the steamy-
rice-fields of Bengal, the Indo-Aryan element
"^ra^mfns"' t^ins out rapidly and appears only in a
sporadic form. The bulk of the population
is Dravidian, modified by a strain of Mongoloid blood which is
relatively strong in the east and appreciably weaker in the
west. Even in Bengal, however, where the Indo-Aryan factor
is so small as to be hardly traceable, certain exceptions may
be noticed. The tradition cherished by the Brahmans and
Kayasths of Bengal that their ancestors came from Kanauj at
the invitation of King Adisur to introduce Vedic ritual into an
unhallowed region is borne out to a substantial degree by the
measurements of these castes, though even among them indica-
tions are not wanting of occasional intermixture with Dravi-
dians.* If, however, the type is regarded as a whole the racial
* Mr. Romesh Chandra Dutt, c.i.E., pointed out long ago that "aboriginal blood
enters largely in [sic] the existing Brahman community of Bengal." Calcutta Review,
LXXV., p. 238.
PHYSICAL TYPES 57
features are seen to be comparatively distinct. The physical
degeneration which has taken place may be due to the influ-
ence of a relaxing climate and an enfeebling diet, and still more
perhaps to the practice of marrying immature children, the
great blot on the social system of the upper classes of Bengal.
Of the foreign elements that have contributed to the making
of the Indian people two have now been passed in review.
We have seen the Indo-Aryan type maintaining a high degree
of purity in the Punjab and Rajputana, transformed by an
increasing admixture of Dravidian blood in Hindustan and
Bihar, and vanishing beyond recognition in the swamps of
Lower Bengal. We have found the Mongoloid races predomi-
nant on the eastern and northern frontiers, ,pj^g soytho-
confined to the hills where the people of the Dravidian type :
plains were strong, but further east, where ^*® history,
they came in contact with feebler folk, mixing with the Dravi-
dian element to form the type characteristic of the mass of the
population of Bengal and Assam. A third foreign element
still remains to be accounted for. It has long been known,
mainly from Chinese sources supplemented by the evidence of
coins and the uncertain testimony of Indian tradition, that long
after the settlement of the Indo-Aryans in the Punjab succes-
sive swarms of nomadic people, vaguely designated Sakas or
Scythians, forced a way into India from the west, and estab-
lished their dominion over portion's of the Punjab, Sind,
Gujarat, Rajputana, and Central India. The impulse which
started them on their wanderings may be traced in some
instances to tribal upheavals in far distant China, while in
other cases hordes already on the move were pushed forward
from Central Asia. All these people came from regions which,
so far as we know, have from time immemorial been occupied
by broadheaded races.
In the time of the Achaemenian kings of Persia the
Scythians, who were known to the Chinese as Sse, occupied
the regions lying between the lower course of the Sillis or
Jaxartes and Lake Balkash. We learn from Herodotus that
according to the opinion of classical antiquity these Scythians
were riding people who wore breeches and used bows of a
fashion of their own. It may be gathered from other sources
that their empire extended up to the plains of Eastern Turke-
stan. In the sixth century b.c. the Scythians, who were then
renowned for their valour and their riches, came within the
scope of the ambitious policy of Cyrus. Their king Amorges
58 PEOPLE OF INDIA
was made prisoner, but Sparethra, his wife, rallied the remains
of the army, repulsed the Persians, and compelled them to
surrender her husband in exchange for the prisoners she had
taken. Notwithstanding this temporary success, the Scythians
were nevertheless recognised as tributaries of the Persians,
and the portion of Turkestan which they occupied formed the
twentieth Satrapy of the Persian Empire. Later on they
seem to have regained their independence, for at the battle
of Arbela we find them fighting on the Persian side no longer
as subjects but allies. The fragments of early Scythian history
which may be collected from classical writers are supplemented
by the Chinese annals, which tell us how the Sse, originally
. . located in Southern China, occupied Sog-
e origm. (jjg^jj^ ^^^ Transoxiana at the time of the
establishment of the Graeco-Bactrian monarchy about the year
165 B.C. Dislodged from these regions by the Yuechi, who had
themselves been put to flight by the Huns, the Sse invaded
Bactriana, an enterprise in which they were frequently allied
with the Parthians. To this circumstance, says Ujfalvy, may
be due the resemblance which exists between the Scythian
coins of India and those of the Parthian kings. At a later
period the Yuechi made a further advance and drove the
Scythians or Sakas out of Bactriana, whereupon the latter
crossed the Paropanisus and took possession of the country
called after them Sakastan, comprising Segistan, Arachosia,
and Drangiana. But they were left in possession only for a
hundred years, for in the year 25 b.c. the Yuechi disturbed
them afresh. A body of Scythians then emigrated eastward
and founded a kingdom in the western portion of the Punjab.
The route they followed in their advance upon India is un-
certain, but to a people of their habits who were already
located in Sakastan it would seem that the march through
Baluchistan and Kachhi would have presented no serious
difficulty. Among the sculptured figures on the rock of
Behistun there is one which bears the name of Sakuka, the
Scythian. Khanikoff, writing in 1866, professed to recognise
in this figure the features of a Kirghiz of the present day.
Ujfalvy, however, regards the statement as doubtful. He says
that he has never seen a Kirghiz with such a luxuriant beard,
and the physiognomy of the figure in question appears to him
to be Turko-Tartar presenting a mixture of Mongolian and
Aryan lineaments.
The Indo-Scythian Yuechi, afterwards known as the
PHYSICAL TYPES 59
Tokhari, while settled in Eastern Turkestan to the south of
the Tian Shan range were defeated by the Hiung-nu or Huns
in 201-265 B.C. They fled towards the west, crossed the moun-
tains and took possession of the part of Bactriana inhabited by
the Tajiks. A portion of them remained in Eastern Turkestan
in the mountainous country to the south-west of Khotan. The
Chinese called these people the Siao or Little Yuechi, in order
to distinguish them from the others, whom they designated
the Ta or Great Yuechi. The Yuechi occupied Central Asia
and the north-west of India for more than five centuries
from 136 B.C. to 425 A.D. The Hindus called them Sakas and
Turushkas, but their kings seem to have known of no other
dynastic title than that of Kushan. The Chinese annals tell
us how Kitolo, Chief of the Great Kushans, whose name is
identified with the Kidara of the coins, giving way before the
incursions of the Ephthalites, crossed the Paropanisus and
founded in the year 425 of our era the kingdom of Gandhara,
of which in the time of his son Peshawar became the capital.
Fifty years later the Ephthalites took possession of Gandhara
and forced the Kushans to retreat into Chitral, Gilgit, and
Kashmir.
Just at the time when the Kushans were establishing
themselves in Gandhara, the Ephthalites or Hoa of the Chinese
annals, who were then settled on the north of the Great Wall
of China, being driven out of their territory by the Juan-
Juan, started westward and overran in succession Sogdiana,
Khwarizm, Bactriana, and finally the north-west portion of
India. Their invading movements reached India in the reign
of Skanda Gupta, 452 — 480, and brought about the disruption
of the Gupta Empire. The Ephthalites were known in India
as Huns. The leader of the invasion of India, who succeeded
in snatching Gandhara from the Kushans, and established his
capital at Sakala, is called by the Chinese Laelih, and the
inscriptions enable us to identify him with the original Lakhan
Udayaditya of the coins. His son Toramana (490—510) took
possession of Gujarat, Rajputana and a portion of the Ganges
valley, and in this way the Huns came into possession of the
ancient Gupta Kingdom. Toramana's successor Mihirakula
(510 — S40) added at the beginning of his reign Kashmir to his
kingdom, but eventually succumbed to the combined attack of
a confederation of the Hindu princes of Malwa and Magadha.*
[* The account in the text of the Scythians and Huns needs to be correcled. The facts
have been carefully collected by V. A. Smith, Early History of India, 3rd ed., 1914,
6o PEOPLE OF INDIA
These are the historical data. Scanty as they are, they
serve to establish the fact that during a long period of time
swarms of nomadic people, whose outlandish names are con-
veniently summed up in the generic term Scythian, poured
into India, conquered and governed. Their coins are now the
sole memorial of their rule, but their inroads probably began
many centuries before coins were struck or annals compiled.
Of the people themselves all traces seem to have vanished,
and the student who enquires what has become of them finds
nothing more tangible than the modern conjecture that they
are represented by the Jats and Rajputs. But the grounds for
this opinion are of the flimsiest description and consist mainly
of the questionable assumption that the people who are called
Jats at the present day must have something to do with the
people who were known to Herodotus as Getae. Now apart
from the fact that resemblances of names are mostly misleading
— witness the Roman identification of these very Getae with
the Goths — we have good historical reasons for believing that
the Scythian invaders of India came from a region occupied
exclusively by broad-headed races and must themselves have
belonged to that type. They were, by all accounts, nations or
hordes of horsemen, with broad faces and high cheek-bones,
short and sturdy of stature, and skilled in the use of the bow.
In their original homes on the Central Asian steppes their
manner of life was that of pastoral nomads; and their instincts
were of the predatory order. It seems therefore prima facie
unlikely that their descendants are to be looked for among
tribes who are essentially of the long-headed type, tall, heavy
men without any natural aptitude for horsemanship, settled
agriculturists with no traditions of a nomadic and marauding
past. Still less probable is it that waves of foreign conquerors,
p. 248 et seq. ; and for the Scythians, by E. W. Minns, Scythians and Greeks, 1913,
Encyclopedia Britannica, ilthed., 191 1, vol. xxiv. p. 526 et seq. For the Huns, see Sir
C. Eliot, Ency. Brit., vol. xiii. p. 932 et seq. Mr. V. A. Smith, who has kindly read the
account in the text, remarks that there is no evidence that the Sakas came from regions
exclusively occupied by broad-headed races ; that the Chinese did not designate a//Scythians
as Sse, this title being apparently confined to the tribes on the Jaxartes ; that Sillis, unless
it represents a form of Syr-darya, has not been traced as a name for the Jaxartes ; that the
account by Herodotus cannot be extended to the Saka ; that the Indians, not the Saka,
were included in the twentieth Satrapy of the Persian Empire ; that there is no authority for
including Arachosia and Drangiana in Sakastan ; the date and course of the invasion of the
Panjab are uncertain ; the evidence of the Behistun figures does not settle the ethnological
problem ; Kushan was not a dynastic title ; Kitolo was chief of the Little, not the Great
ICushans ; Peshawar was the capital of Gandhara ages before the Saka invasion ; there is no
evidence that the Kushans retreated before the Ephthalites into Chitral or Gilgit ; the reign
of Skanda Gupta extended from about 455 to 480 A.n. ; there is no ground for identifying
Laelih with Lakhan Udayaditya, nor was Toramana son of the latter.]
PHYSICAL TYPES 6i
entering India at a date when the Indo-Aryans had long been
an organized community, should have been absorbed by them
so completely as to take rank among their most typical repre-
sentatives, while the form of their heads, the most persistent of
racial distinctions, was transformed from the extreme of one
type to the extreme of another without leaving any trace of
the transitional forms involved in the process. Such are the
contradictions which beset the attempt to identify the Scythians
with the Jats and Rajputs. The only escape from them seems
to lie in an alternative hypothesis which is suggested by the
measurements summarised in the Scytho-Dravidian table.
These data show that a zone of broad-headed people may still
be traced southwards from the region of the Western Punjab,
in which we lose sight of the Scythians, right through the
Deccan till it attains its furthest extension among the Coorgs.
Is it not conceivable that this may mark the track of the
Scythians who first occupied the great grazing country of the
Western Punjab and then, pressed upon by later invaders and
finding their progress eastward blocked by the Indo-Aryans,
turned towards the south, mingled with the Dravidian popula-
tion and became the ancestors of the Marathas ? The physical
type of the people of the Deccan accords fairly well with this
theory, while the arguments derived from language and religion
do not seem to conflict with it. For, after entering India the
Scythians readily adopted an Aryan language written in the
Kharosthi character and accepted Buddhism as their religion.
These they would have carried with them to the south. Their
Prakrit speech would have developed into Marathi, while their
Buddhistic doctrines would have been absorbed in that fusion
of magic and metaphysics which has resulted in popular
Hinduism. Nor is it wholly fanciful to discover some aspects
of Maratha history which lend it incidental support. On this
view the wide-ranging forays of the Marathas ; their guerrilla
methods of warfare ; their unscrupulous dealings with friend
and foe ; their genius for intrigue, and their consequent failure
to build up an enduring dominion ; and finally the individuality
of character and tenacity of purpose which distinguish them at
the present day — all these may be regarded as part of the
inheritance which has come to them from their Scythian
ancestors.
CHAPTER II
SOCIAL TYPES
Kpiv ttvSpas Kara <f>vXa, koto. (fipT^rpas, 'Ayd/ieyu.i/oi',
(US <^prjTpi] <l>prjTpri<l>w dprf^rj, cj>v\a Sk ^uXois.
//. 11. 362-3.
Up to this point I have been dealing with the racial divisions
of the people of India, with ethnology
^°the\ribe ^''"^ ■ Properly so called. I turn now to their
social divisions, to the ethnographic data as
distinguished from the ethnological. These divisions are either
tribes or castes, which in their turn are further subdivided
with reference usually to matrimonial considerations. A tribe
as we find it in India is a collection of families or groups of
families bearing a common name which as a rule does not denote
any specific occupation ; generally claiming common descent
from a mythical or historical ancestor, and occasionally from an
animal, but in some parts of the country held together rather
by the obligations of blood feud than by the tradition of kin-
ship ; usually speaking the same language and occupying, pro-
fessing, or claiming to occupy a definite tract of country. A
tribe is not necessarily endogamous ; that is to say, it is not an
invariable rule that a man of a particular tribe must marry a
woman of that tribe and cannot marry a woman of a different
tribe.
We may distinguish several kinds of tribes in various parts
of India, and although it cannot be said that
each of the seven racial types has its own
distinctive form of tribe, nevertheless the correspondence
between the two sets of groupings is sufficiently close to
warrant the conjecture, that each type was originally
organized on a characteristic tribal basis and that, where tribes
have disappeared, their disappearance has been effected by
caste insensibly absorbing and transforming the tribal divisions
which it found in possession of particular localities. In
SOCIAL types' 63
describing the varieties of tribes I shall therefore follow the
ethnic types already determined by physical characters.
The Dravidian tribe exists in its most compact and vigorous
form among the people ot Chutia Nagpur. „, „ .,. ^ .,
T^ ..^ r ■ , ■ The Dravidian tribe.
Descriptions 01 two typical instances are
given in the Appendix under the heads of Munda and Santal.
Such a tribe is generally divided into a number of exogamous
groups, each of which bears the name of an animal or plant
common in the locality. Usually also there is a distinct village
organization comprising in its most developed forms a head-
man with his assistant and a priest with various acolytes whose
business it is to propitiate the various undefined powers from
whom physical ills are to be apprehended. Another remark-
able instance of the tribal organization of the Dravidians is to
be found among the Kandhs or Kondhs of the Orissa Kandh
Mais, once infamous for the human sacrifices which they offered
to the earth goddess with the object of ensuring good crops and
immunity from disease and accidents. A grim memorial of
these forgotton horrors is to be seen in the Madras Museum in
the form of a rude representation in wood of the head and
trunk of an elephant pivoted on a stout post. To this the
victim was bound head downwards and the machine was slowly
turned round in the centre of a crowd of worshippers who
hacked and tore away scraps of flesh to bury in their fields,
chanting the while a ghastly hymn, an extract from which
illustrates very clearly the theory of sympathetic magic under-
lying the ritual —
As the tears stream from thine eyes,
So may the rain pour down in August ;
As the mucus trickles from thy nostrils,
So may it drizzle at intervals ;
As thy blood gushes forth,
So may the vegetation sprout ;
As thy gore falls in drops,
So may the grains of rice form.
A number of these wooden elephants, which had been used
at sacrifices, were found and burnt by the British officers who
put down human sacrifice in the Kandh country. The worm-
eaten specimen at Madras is probably unique.* The Kandhs
are divided into 50 gochis or exogamous sects, each of which
bears the name of a niuta or village, believes all its members to
be descended from a common ancestor, and as a rule dwells as
,[* For a photograph of the Meriah sacrifice post in the Madras Museum, see E.
Thurston, Tribes and Castes of Southern India, igog, vol. iii. p. 377 : for details of this rite.
Sir J. G. Kraser, The Golden Bough, 3rd ed. pt. v., 1912, p. 245 et scq.'\
64 PEOPLE OF INDIA
a body of blood-relations in the commune or group of villages
after which it is called. The Kandh ^ocA? appears, therefore, to
represent the nearest approach that has yet been discovered to
the local exogamous tribe believed by Mr. McLennan to be the
primitive unit of human society.
The Mongoloid type of tribe as found in the Naga Hills is
divided somewhat on the same pattern as the
^ tribef ° °^ Kandhs into a number of khels, each of which
is in theory an exogamous group of blood
relations dwelling apart in its own territory and more or less
at war with the rest of the world. Each khel fortifies the locality
which it inhabits with a stockade, a deep ditch full of bamboo
caltrops, and a craftily devised ladder, and raids are constantly
made by one upon the other for the purpose of capturing wives.
So far as our present researches have gone no very clear traces
have been found of totemism among the Mongoloid races of
India,* but the Mongoloid people of the Eastern Himalayas and
the Chittagong Hills have a singular system of exogamous
groups based upon their real or mythical ancestors. Instances
of this grotesque variant of eponymy are the Chakma clans
Ichdpochd, " the man who ate rotten shrimps," Ptrd bhdngd,
" the fat man who broke the stool," Aruyd, " the skeleton,"
The Turko-Iranian and SO forth.f
tribes : the Afghan Among the Turko-Iramaiis there seem
type. ^Q jjg ^^Q distinct types of tribe : —
{a) Tribes based upon kinship like the Afghan group of
tribes, otherwise known as Pathans or
'^Bi-rhuftyp^'^ speakers of the Pashtu language, who trace
their lineage to one Qais Abdul Rashid who
lived in the country immediately to the west of the Takht-i-
Sulaiman and was thirty-seventh in descent from Malik Talut
(King Saul). In theory, says Mr. Hughes-BuUer in his
admirable account of the tribal system of Baluchistan, % " an
Afghan tribe is constituted from the number of kindred groups
of agnates ; that is to say, descent is through the father, and
the son inherits the blood of his father. Affiliated with a good
many tribes, however, are to be found a certain number of
alien groups known as Mindun or Hamsayah. The latter
[* Instances of totemism among the tribes of Assam are recorded by Major A. Playfair,
The Garos, igog, p. 64 et seq., and by S. Endle, The Kacharis, 191 1. p. 24 et seq.
Among the Khasis the evidence is doubtful, Major P. R. Gurdon, The Khasis, 1907, p. 66.
Also in Sir J. G. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, 1910, vol. ii. p. jlSetseq. ; iv. p. 2g^et seq.]
[t Risley, Triies and Castes of Bengal, vol. ii. App. i. p. 31 et seqJ]
[I Census Report, Baluchistan, 1901, vol. i. p. 119 et «y.]
SOCIAL TYPES 65
term means 'living in the same shade.' These groups are
admittedly not united to the tribe by kinship." They do not,
indeed, even claim descent from the common ancestor, and the
nature of the tie that binds them to the tribe is best expressed
in the picturesque phrase which describes them as Neki aur
badimen sharik, " partners for better or worse " ; in other words,
active participators in any blood-feud that the tribe may
have on their hands. Yet such is the influence of the idea
of kinship upon which the tribe is based that the alien origin
of the Hamsayah is admitted with reluctance, and although
for matrimonial purposes they are looked upon as inferior, the
tendency is continually to merge the fact of common vendetta in
the fiction of common blood. These are the two leading prin-
ciples which go to the making of an Afghan tribe. There are also
— Mr. Hughes-BuUer explains — "two other ties which unite the
smaller groups : common pasture, or, more important still,
common land and water, and common inheritance. The area
occupied by each section can be pretty easily localized, and a
group which separates itself permanently from the parent stock
and makes its way to a remote locality, where it either sets up
for itself or joins some other tribe, ceases to have any part
or portion with the parent stock. Here the test question is :
' Has the individual or group on separating from the parent
stock, departed only temporarily or permanently ? ' For,
among a population largely composed of graziers, there must
be constant fission, groups leaving the locality of the majority
for other places as pasture or water are required for the flocks.
Where the change is only temporary, groups retain as a
matter of course their union with the group to which they
belong. There are others, however, who wish to sever their
connection with the parent group permanently, and, once
this has been done, the idea of participation in the common
good and ill of the parent stock disappears. Common
inheritance can, in the nature of things, only be shared by
the more minute groups, and this, in the absence of blood-
feud, is the bond of unity in the family or Kahol. And this
leads me to explain that all the four principles which I have
mentioned do not affect every group equally. Thus, the
smaller groups or Kahols, which in most cases correspond
with the family, are united by kinship and common inheritance,
but within the family group there can be no blood-feud.
For blood-feud can only be carried on when help is given
from outside, and no one will help the murderer within the
R PI. 5
66 PEOPLE OF INDIA
family. Leaving the lowest group, we find that common good
and ill, merging in the fiction of kinship, is the influence
affecting all the groups, even the largest unit, of the tribe.
Common land and water are only shared by comparatively
minute groups, i.e., by the Khel or Zdl, but the groups united
by common locality, and possibly by common grazing, are
both numerous and large."
{b) The second type of Turko-Iranian tribe is based,
primarily, not upon agnatic kinship, but upon common good
and ill ; in other words, it is cemented together by the
obligations arising from the blood-feud. There is no epony-
mous ancestor, and the tribe itself does not profess to be
composed of homogeneous elements. In the case of the Marri
tribe of Baloch Mr. Hughes-Buller has shown that " Brahuis,
Baloch from the Punjab, Baloch from other parts of Afghani-
stan, Khetrans, Afghans, Jats, all gained easy admission to
the tribe. As soon as a man joined the tribe permanently
he became a participator in good and ill. Then, having shown
his worth, he was given a vested interest in the tribal welfare
by acquiring a portion of the tribal lands at the decennial
division, and his admission was sealed with blood by women
from the tribe being given to him or his sons in marriage.
Starting, therefore, with the principle of participation in
common good and common ill, participation in the tribal
land came to be the essence of tribesmanship among the
Marris. The process is easy to follow : Admission to
participation in common blood-feud ; then admission to
participation in tribal land ; and lastly admission to kinship
with the tribe. It was not until after a man or group had
been given a share of tribal land at the decennial distribution
that women were given to him or them in marriage." The
same principles hold good in the case of the Brahui, who,
like the Baloch, appear both by their history and by their
physique to be of Central Asian or Scythian origin, though
their numbers have been recruited from among Afghans,
Kurds, Jagdals, Baloch, and other elements, all probably
belonging to the same ethnic stock.
Both Baloch and Brahui possess an elaborate organization for
offensive and defensive purposes, based in each case on the
principle that the clan or section must provide for the service
of the tribe a number of armed men proportioned to the
share of the tribal land which it holds. The Brahui system,
introduced by Nasir Khan about the end of the seventeenth
SOCIAL TYPES 67
century, is somewhat the more complete of the two, and binds
together all the Brahui tribes in a regular confederacy which is
now, according to Mr. Hughes-Buller, beginning to regard the
British Government as its effective suzerain. A full account of
the Brahui taken from Mr. Hughes-Buller's report on the first
census of Baluchistan will be found in the ethnographic volume
of the Imperial Census Report for 1901.
None of the numerous tribes comprised in the names
Afghan, Brahui, Baloch are strictly endoga-
mous, and stalwart aliens, whose services Marriage in Baiu-
... 1 , • , ■ , chistan.
are considered worth having, are admitted
into the tribe by the gift of a wife, or perhaps one should
rather say the loan, for, in the absence of stipulations to the
contrary, a woman so given goes back to her own family on the
death of her husband. Among the Baloch and Brahui, however,
a distinct tendency towards endogamy results from the practice
of marrying a woman of the same group, a near kinswoman,
or, if possible, a first cousin. This seems to be due partly to
the feeling that a woman's marriage to an outsider deprives the
tribe of the accession of strength that may accrue to it from
her offspring; and partly also to the belief that "while among
animals heredity follows the father, among human beings it
follows the mother. It is argued, therefore, that there is more
hope of the stock remaining pure if a man marries a woman
who is nearly related to him." In marked contrast to the Baloch
and Brahui, the business instincts of the Afghan lead him to
regard women as a marketable commodity, and under the
system of walwar or payment for wives " girls are sold to the
highest bidder, no matter what his social status." It is possible,
however, that in a tribe of comparatively homogeneous descent
the sentiment in favour of purity of blood may operate less
strongly than in a tribe of admittedly composite structure.
We shall see in a later chapter how the 'word fetish, which
has had a great vogue in the history of ^he word " caste."
religion, owes its origin to the Portuguese
navigators who were brought into contact with the strange
religious observances of the natives of West Africa. In the
same way caste, which has obtained an equally wide currency
in the literature of sociology, comes from the Portuguese
adventurers who followed Vasco de Gama to the west coast of
India. The word itself is derived from the Latin castus and
implies purity of breed. In his article on caste in " Hobson-
Jobson," Sir Henry Yule quotes a decree of the sacred council
68 PEOPLE OF INDIA
of Goa dated 1567, which recites how in some parts of that
province " the Gentoos divide themselves into distinct races or
castes {castas) of greater or less dignity, holding the Christians
as of lower degree, and keep these so superstitiously that no
one of a higher caste can eat or drink with those of a lower."
From that time to this it has been assumed without much
critical examination that the essential principle of caste is
mainly concerned with. matters of eating and drinking. It need
not surprise us to find foreign observers laying stress upon the
superficial aspects of a social system which they understood
but imperfectly, and overlooking the material fact that the
regulations affecting food and drink are comparatively fluid and
transitory, while those relating to marriage are remarkably
stable and absolute.
A caste may be defined as a collection of families or groups
of families bearing a common name ; claim-
Definition of caste. J ,. r iU- 1
ing common descent from a mythical
ancestor, human or divine ; professing to follow the same
hereditary calling ; and regarded by those who are competent
to give an opinion as forming a single homogeneous community.
The name generally denotes or is associated with a specific
occupation. A caste is almost invariably endogamous in the sense
that a member of the large circle denoted by the common name
may not marry outside that circle, but within the circle there
are usually a number of smaller circles each of which is also
endogamous. Thus it is not enough to say that a Brahman at
the present day cannot marry any woman who is not a
Brahman; his wife must not only be a Brahman, she must also
belong to the same endogamous division of the Brahman caste.
By the side of this rigid definition I may place the general
description of caste which is given by M.
M. Senart's deserip- gj^jj^ Senart in his fascinating study of the
caste system of India. After reminding his
readers that no statement that can be made on the subject of
caste can be considered as absolutely true, that the apparent
relations of the facts admit of numerous shades of distinction,
and that only the most general characteristics cover the whole of
the subject, M. Senart goes on to describe a caste as a close
corporation, in theory at any rate rigorously hereditary ;
equipped with a certain traditional and independent organization,
including a chief and a council ; meeting on occasion in
assemblies of more or less plenary authority, and joining in the
celebration of certain festivals ; bound together by a common
SOCIAL TYPES 69
occupation; observing certain common usages which relate
more particularly to marriage, to food and to questions of
ceremonial pollution; and ruling its members by the exercise
of a jurisdiction the extent of which varies, but which
succeeds, by the sanction of certain penalties and above all by
the power of final or revocable exclusion from the group, in
making the authority of the community effectively felt.
These, in the view of one of the most distinguished of
French scholars, are the leading features of . x. t i, n i
y ,. '„ ° . , An English parallel.
Indian caste. I'or my own part 1 have
always been much impressed by the difficulty of conveying to
European readers who have no experience of India even an
approximate idea of the extraordinary complexity of the social
system which is involved in the word "caste." At the risk of
being charged with frivolity I shall, therefore, venture on an
illustration, based on one which I published in Blackwood's
Magazine a good many years ago, of a caste expressed in terms
of an English social group. Let us take an instance, and, in
order to avoid the fumes of bewilderment that are thrown off
by uncouth names, let us frame it on English lines. Let us
imagine the great tribe of Smith, the " noun of multitude," as a
famous headmaster used to call it, to be transformed by art
magic into a caste organized on the Indian model, in which all the
subtle nuances of social merit and demerit which Punch and
the society papers love to chronicle should have been set and
hardened into positive regulations affecting the intermarriage
of families. The caste thus formed would trace its origin back
to a mythical eponymous ancestor, the first Smith who
converted the rough stone hatchet into the bronze battleaxe
and took his name from the "smooth"* weapons that he
wrought for his tribe. Bound together by this tie of common
descent, they would recognize as the cardinal doctrine of their
community the rule that a Smith must always marry a Smith,
and could by no possibility marry a Brown, a Jones, or a Robin-
son. But overand above this general canon threeother modes or
principles of grouping within the caste would be conspicuous.
First of all, the entire caste of Smith would be split up into an
indefinite number of "in-marrying" clans based upon all sorts
of trivial distinctions. Brewing Smiths and baking Smiths,
hunting Smiths and shooting Smiths, temperance Smiths and
* SktaX, Etymological Dictionary, s.v. "Smith." ["The relations of the stem are doubtful.
The original stem was apj>. craftsman, skilled worker, in metal, wood, or other material, and
this general sense remains in Icelandic," New English Diciionnry, s.v.'\
70 PEOPLE OF INDIA
licensed-victualler Smiths, Smiths with double-barrelled names
and hyphens, Smiths with double-barrelled names without
hyphens, Conservative Smiths, Radical Smiths, tinker Smiths,
tailor Smiths, Smiths of Mercia, Smithsof Wessex — all these and
all other imaginable varieties of the tribe Smith would be as it
were crystallized by an inexorable law forbidding the members
of any of these groups to marry beyond the circle marked out
by the clan-name. Thus the Unionist Mr. Smith could only
marry a Unionist Miss Smith, and might not think of a Home
Rule damsel ; the free-trade Smiths would have nothing to say
to the tariff reformers ; a hyphen-Smith could only marry a
hyphen-Smith, and so on. Secondly, within each class enquiry
would disclose a number of "out-marrying" groups, bearing
distinctive names, and governed by the rule that a man of one
group could in no circumstances marry a girl of the same group.
In theory each group would be regarded as a circle of blood-
kindred and would trace its descent from a mythical or historical
ancestor like the Wayland-Smith of the Berkshire hills, the
Captain Smith who married Pocahontas, or the Mr. W. H. Smith
of the railway bookstalls. The name of each would usually
suggest its origin, and marriages within the limits defined
by the group-name would be deemed incestuous, however
remote the actual relationship between the parties concerned.
A Wayland could not marry a Wayland, though the two might
come from opposite ends of the kingdom and be in no way
related, but must seek his bride in the Pocahontas or bookstall
circle, and so on. Thus the system, the converse o{ that just
described, would effect in a cumbrous and imperfect fashion
what is done for ourselves by the table of prohibited degrees
at the end of the Prayer-book — cumbrous because it would
forbid marriage between people who are in no sense relations,
and imperfect because the group-name would descend in the
male line and would of itself present no obstacle to a man
marrying his grandmother. Thirdly, running through the
entire series of clans we should find yet another principle at
work breaking up each in-marrying clan into three or four
smaller groups which would form a sort of ascending scale of
social distinction. Thus the clan of hyphen-Smiths, which we
take to be the cream of the caste — the Smiths who have attained
to the crowning glory of double names securely welded
together by hyphens — would be again divided into, let us say,
Anglican, Dissenting, and Salvationist hyphen-Smiths, taking
regular rank in that order. Now the rule of this series of
SOCIAL TYPES 71
groups would be that a man of the highest or Anglican group
might marry a girl of his own group or of the two lower
groups, that a man of the second or Dissenting group might
take a Dissenting or Salvationist wife, while a Salvationist man
would be restricted to his own group. A woman, it will be
observed, could under no circumstances marry down into a
group below her, and it would be thought eminently desirable
for her to marry into a higher group. Other things being equal,
it is clear that two-thirds of the Anglican girls would get no
husbands, and two-thirds of the Salvationist men no wives.
These are some of the restrictions which would control the
process of match-making among the Smiths if they were
organized in a caste of the Indian type. There would also be
restrictions as to food. The different in-marrying clans would
be precluded from dining together, and their possibilities of
reciprocal entertainment would be limited to those products
of the confectioner's shop into the composition of which water,
the most fatal and effective vehicle of ceremonial impurity, had
not entered. Water pollutes wholesale, but its power as a
conductor of malign influence admits of being neutralized by a
sufficient admixture of milk, curds, whey, or clarified butter —
in fact, of anything that comes from the sacred cow. It would
follow from this that the members of our imaginary caste could
eat chocolates and other forms of sweetmeats together, but
could not drink tea or coffee, and could only partake of ices if
they were made with cream and were served on metal, not
porcelain, plates. I am sensible of having trenched on the
limits of literary and scientific propriety in attempting to
describe an ancient and famous institution in unduly
vivacious language, but the parallel is as accurate as
any parallel drawn from the other end of the world can
well be, and it has the advantage of being presented in
terms familiar to European readers. The illustration, indeed,
may be carried a step further. If we suppose the various
aggregates of persons bearing the two or three thousand
commonest English surnames to be formed into separate
castes and organized on the lines described above, so that no
one could marry outside the caste-name and could only marry
within that limit subject to the restrictions imposed by
differences' of residence, occupation, religion, custom, social
status, and the like— the mental picture thus formed will give
a fairly adequate idea of the bewildering complexity of the
Indian caste system.
72 PEOPLE OF INDIA
All over India at the present moment tribes are gradually
and insensibly being transformed into castes.
°°''lnto castef '''^' The stages of this operation are in them-
selves difficult to trace. The main agency
at work is fiction, which in this instance takes the form of the
pretence that whatever usage prevails to-day did not come into
existence yesterday, but has been so from the beginning of time.
It may be hoped that the Ethnographic Survey now in pro-
gress will throw some light upon the singular course of evolu-
tion by which large masses of people surrender a condition of
comparative freedom and take in exchange a condition which
becomes more burdensome in proportion as its status is higher.
So far as my own observation goes, several distinct processes
are involved in the movement, and these proceed independently
in different places and at different times.
(i) The leading men of an aboriginal tribe, having somehow
got on in the world and become independent landed proprietors,
manage to enrol themselves in one of the more distinguished
castes. They usually set up as Rajputs, their first step being
to start a Brahman priest, who invents for them a mythical
ancestor, supplies them with a family miracle connected with
the locality where the tribe is settled, and discovers that they
belong to some hitherto unheard-of clan of the great Rajput
community. In the earlier stages of their advancement they
generally find great difficulty in getting their daughters
married, as they will not take husbands from their original
tribe and Rajputs of their adopted caste will, of course, not
condescend to alliances with them. But after a generation or
two their persistency obtains its reward and they intermarry,
if not with pure Rajputs, at least with a superior order of
manufactured Rajputs whose promotion into Brahmanical
society dates far enough back for the steps by which it was
gained to have been forgotten. Thus a real change of blood
may take place, as indeed one is on occasion in a position to
observe, while in any case the tribal name is completely lost
and with it all possibility of correctly separating this class of
people from the Hindus of purer blood and of tracing them to
any particular Dravidian or Mongoloid tribe. They have been
absorbed in the fullest sense of the word, and henceforth pass
and are locally accepted as high-class Hindus. All stages of
the process, family miracle and all, can be illustrated by actual
instances taken from the leading families in various parts of
India. The most picturesque instance of the class of legend to
SOCIAL TYPES 73
which I refer is that associated with the family of the Maharajas
of Chutia Nagpur, who call themselves Nagbansi Rajputs, and
on the strength of their mythical pedigree have probably
succeeded in occasionally procuring wives of reputed Rajput
blood. The story itself- is a variant of the well-known
Lohengrin legend. It tells how a king of the Nagas or snakes,
the strange prehistoric race which figures so largely in Indian
mythology, took upon himself human form and married a
beautiful Brahman girl of Benares. His incarnation, however,
was in two respects incomplete, for he could not get rid of his
forked tongue and his evil-smelling breath. Consequently, as
the story goes, in order to conceal these disagreeable peculi-
arities he always slept with his back to his wife. His pre-
cautions, however, were unsuccessful, for she discovered what
he sought to conceal, and her curiosity was greatly inflamed.
But the snake king, being bound by the same condition as his
Teutonic prototype, could only disclose his origin at the cost of
separation from his wife. Accordingly, by a device familiar to
Indian husbands, he diverted her attention by proposing to
take her on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Jagannath at Puri in
Orissa. The couple started by the direct route through the
hills and forests of Chutia Nagpur, and when they reached the
neighbourhood of the present station of Ranchi the wife was
seized by the pains of childbirth. Her curiosity revived, and
she began to ask questions. By folklore etiquette questions
asked on such an occasion must be answered, and her husband
was compelled to explain that he was really the Takshak Raja,
the king of the snakes. Having divulged this fatal secret he did
not, like Lohengrin, make a dignified exit to the strains of slow
music. He straightway turned into a gigantic cobra, where-
upon his wife was delivered of a male child and died. The
poor snake made the best of the trying position in which he
found himself; he spread his hood and sheltered the infant
from the rays of the midday sun. While he was thus occupied,
some wood-cutters of the Munda tribe appeared upon the
scene, and decided that a child discovered in such remarkable
circumstances must be destined to a great future and should
at once be adopted as their chief That is the family legend of
the Nagbansi Rajas of Chutia Nagpur.* It was received with
derisive merriment by a number of genuine Rajputs who
attended a conference which I held at Mount Abu in 1900 for
the purpose of organizing the census of Rajputana. They
* [E, T. Dalton, Descnptive Ethnology of Bengal, 1872, p. 165 et seq^
74 PEOPLE OF INDIA
had never heard of such a thing as a Nagbansi Rajput, but they
entirely appreciated the point of the story. Similar tales,
associated sometimes with a peacock, sometimes with a cow,
sometimes with other animals or trees, are told of various land-
owning families which have attained brevet rank as local Rajputs.
Any one who has the curiosity to inquire into the distribution
of tenures on the estates of these manufactured Rajputs will
usually find that a number of the best villages lying round the
residence of the Chief are held on peppercorn rents by the
descendants of the Brahmans who helped him to his miraculous
pedigree.
(2) A number of aborigines, as we may conveniently call
them, though the term begs an insoluble question, embrace the
tenets of a Hindu religious sect, losing thereby their tribal
name and becoming Vaishnavas, Lingayats," Ramayats, or the
like. Whether there is any mixture of blood or not will depend
upon local circumstances and the rules of the sect regarding
intermarriage. Anyhow, the identity of the converts as
aborigines is usually, though not invariably, lost, and this also
may, therefore, be regarded as a case of true absorption.
(3) A whole tribe of aborigines, or a large section of a tribe,
enrol themselves in the ranks of Hinduism under the style of a
new caste, which, though claiming an origin of remote antiquity,
is readily distinguishable by its name from any of the standard
and recognized castes. Thus the great majority of the Kochh
inhabitants of Jalpaiguri, Rangpur, and part of Dinajpur now
invariably describe themselves as Rajbansis or Bhanga Ksha-
triyas — a designation which enables them to represent them-
selves as an outlying branch of the Kshatriyas of Hindu
tradition who fled to north-eastern Bengal in order to escape
from the wrath of Parasu-Rama. They claim descent from
Raja Dasaratha, the father of Rama, they keep Brahmans,
imitate the orthodox ritual in their marriage ceremony, and
have begun to adopt the Brahmanical system of gotras. In
respect of this last point they are now in a curious state of
transition, as they have all hit upon the same gotra (Kasyapa)
and thus habitually transgress the primary rule of the
Brahmanical system, which absolutely prohibits marriage
within the gotra. But for this defect in their connubial
arrangements — a defect which will probably be corrected in
course of time as they and their priests rise in intelligence —
there would be nothing in their customs to distinguish them
from Indo-Aryan Hindus ; although there has been no mixture
SOCIAL TYPES 75
of blood and they remain thoroughly Kochh under the name of
Rajbansi. It is right to add that, however baseless the tradition
must be in the case of the tribe as a whole, it does not follow
that it may not enshrine a grain of fact as applied to their
Chief The Rajputs in India, like the Normans in Europe,
travelled far afield in their conquering excursions. In a
country where history masquerades in the garb of legend
there is nothing prima facie improbable in the conjecture
that the story of the Bhanga-Kshatriyas may be really a
mythological version of the true origin of the reigning family
of Cooch Bihar. A Chief of the higher race ruling a people of
the lower is a phenomenon too common to require explanation.
(4) A whole tribe of aborigines, or a section of a tribe,
become gradually converted to Hinduism without, like the
Rajbansis, abandoning their tribal designation. This is what
has happened among the Bhumij of Western Bengal. Here a
pure Dravidian race have lost their original language and now
speak only Bengali ; they worship Hindu gods in addition to
their own (the tendency being to relegate the tribal gods to the
women) and the more advanced among them employ Brahmans
as family priests. They still retain a set of totemistic exogam-
ous sub-divisions closely resembling those of the Mundas and
the Santals. But they are beginning to forget the totems
which the names of the sub-divisions denote, and the names
themselves will probably soon be abandoned in favour of more
aristocratic designations. The tribe will then have become a
caste in the full sense of the word, and will go on stripping
itself of all customs likely to betray its true descent. The
physical characteristics of its members will alone survive.
With their transformation into a caste the Bhumij will be more
strictly endogamous than they were as a tribe, and even less
likely to modify their physical type by intermarriage with
other races.
By such processes as these, and by a variety of complex
social influences whose working cannot be f c t
precisely traced, a number of types or
varieties of caste have been formed which admit of being
grouped as follows : —
(?) The tribal type, where a tribe like the Bhumij referred to
above has insensibly been converted into ... „ .^ ,
a caste,- preserving its original name and
many of its characteristic customs, but modifying its animistic
practices more and more in the direction of orthodox Hinduism
76 PEOPLE OF INDIA
and ordering its manner of life in accordance with the same
model. Numerous instances of this process are to be found
all over India ; it has been at work for centuries and it has
even been supposed that the Sudras of Indo-Aryan tradition
were originally a Dravidian tribe which was thus incorporated
into the social system of the conquering race. Considerations
of space preclude me from attempting an exhaustive enumera-
tion of the castes which may plausibly be described as tribes
absorbed into Hinduism, but I may mention as illustrations of
the transformation that has taken place, the Ahir, Dom, and
Dosadh of the United Provinces and Bihar; the Gujar, Jat,
Meo, and Rajput of Rajputana and the Punjab ; the Koli,
Mahar, and Maratha of Bombay; the Bagdi, Bauri, Chandal
(Namasudra), Kaibartta, Pod, and Rajbansi-Kochh of Bengal ;
and in Madras the Mai, Nayar, Vellala, and Paraiyan or
Pariah, of whom the last retain traditions of a time when
they possessed an independent organization of their own
and had not been relegated to a low place in the Hindu social
system.
(m) The functional or occupational type of caste is so numerous
and so widely diifused and its characteristics are
^ee^tes"'^*^ ^° prominent that community of function is ordi-
narily regarded as the chief factor in the evolu-
tion of caste. Whatever the original impulse may have been, it
is a matter of observation at the present day not only that almost
every caste professes to have a traditional occupation, though
many of its members have abandoned it, but that the adoption
of new occupations or of changes in the original occupation
may give rise to sub-divisions of the caste which ultimately
develop into entirely distinct castes. Thus among the large
castes shown in the maps at the end of this volume the Ahirs
are by tradition herdsmen ; the Brahmans priests ; the
Chamars and Mochis workers in leather ; the Chuhras, Bhangis,
and Doms scavengers ; the Dosadhs village watchmen and
messengers ; the Goalas milkmen ; the Kaibarttas and Kewats
fishermen and cultivators ; the Kayasths writers ; the Koiri
and Kachhi market gardeners ; the Kumhars potters ; the Pods
lishermen ; and the Teli and Tili oil-pressers and traders. But
the proportion of a caste that actually follows the traditional
occupation may vary greatly. It is shown in the Bengal Census
Report * that 80 per cent, of the AhIrs in Bihar are engaged in
agriculture; that of the Bengal Brahmans only 17 percent, and
* [Census Report, Bengal, 1901, vol i. p. 486.]
SOCIAL TYPES n
of the Bihar Brahmans only 8 per cent, are engaged in religious
functions ; that not more than 8 per cent, of the Chamars in
Bihar live by working in leather, the remainder being culti-
vators or general labourers ; that two-thirds of the Kayasths in
Bengal are agriculturists, and that only thirty-five per cent, of
the Telis follow their traditional profession. A remarkable
instance of the formation of a caste on the basis of distinctive
occupation is supplied by the Garpagari or hail-averter in the
Maratha districts of the Central Provinces, a village servant
whose duty it is to control the elements and protect the crops
from the destructive hail-storms which are frequent in that part
of India. For this, says Mr. Russell, " he receives a contribution
from the cultivators ; but in recent years an unavoidable
scepticism as to his efficiency has tended to reduce his earnings.
Mr. Fuller told me that on one occasion when he was hastening
through the Chanda District on tour and pressed for time, the
weather at one of his halting places looked threatening, and he
feared that it would rain and delay the march. Among the
villagers who came to see him was the local Garpagari, and not
wishing to neglect any chance he ordered him to take up his
position outside the camp and keep off the rain. This the
Garpagari did, and watched through the night. In the event the
rain held off, the camp moved, and that Garpagari's reputation
was established for life." * Changes of occupation in their turn,
more especially among the lower castes, tend to bring about the
formation of separate castes. The Sadgops of Bengal have
within recent times taken to agriculture and broken away from
the pastoral caste to which they originally belonged ; the
educated Kaibarttas and Pods are in course of separating
themselves from their brethren who have not learnt English ;
the Madhunapit are barbers who became confectioners ; the
Chasadhobas washermen who took to agriculture. But perhaps
the best illustration of the contagious influence of the fiction
that differences of occupation imply a difference of' blood is to
be found in the list of Musalman castes enumerated by Mr.
Gait in the Bengal Census Report of igoi.t This motley
company includes the Abdal of Northern and Eastern Bengal,
who circumcise Muhammadan boys and castrate animals, while
their women act as mid-wives ; the Bhatiyara or inn-keepers of
Bihar; the butchers (Chik and Kasai); the drummers (Nagarchi
and Dafali), of whom the latter exorcise evil spirits and avert
* Census Report of the Central Provinces, 1901, vol. i. p. 178.
t [Vol. i. p. 443 ^^ seq.'\
7^ PEOPLE OF INDIA
the evil eye by beating a drum (daf) and also officiates as
priests at the marriages and funerals of people who are too
poor to pay the regular Qazi ; the cotton-carders (Dhunia or
Nadaf) numbering 200,000 in Bengal ; the barbers (Hajjam or
Turk-Naia); the Jolaha weavers, cultivators, bookbinders,
tailors, and dyers numbering nearly a quarter of a million in
Bengal and nearly three millions in India; the oil-pressers
(Kalu) ; the greengrocers (Kunjra) ; the embroiderers (Patwa),
and a number of minor groups. All of these bodies are castes
of the standard Hindu type with governing committees
{panchdyats or matbars) of their own who organize strikes and
see that no member of the caste engages in a degrading occupa-
tion, works for lower wages than his brethren, eats forbidden
food, or marries a woman of another caste. Breaches of these
and various other unwritten ordinances are visited in the last
resort by the extreme penalty of excommunication. This
means that no. one will eat or smoke with the offender, visit at
his house, or marry his daughter, while in extreme cases he is
deprived of the services of the barber and the washerman.
{Hi) The sectarian type comprises a small number of castes which
commenced life as religious sects founded by
castet?*"^ philanthropic enthusiasts who, having evolved
some metaphysical formula offering a speedier
release from the tcedium vitce which oppresses theEast, had further
persuaded themselves that all men were equal, or at any rate
that all believers in their teaching ought to be equal. As time
went on the practical difficulties of realizing this ideal forced
themselves upon the members of the sect ; they found their
company becoming unduly mixed ; and they proceeded to
reorganize themselves on the lines of an ordinary caste. A
notable instance of this tendency to revert to the normal type
of Hindu society is to be found in the present condition of the
Lingayat or Virshaiv caste of Bombay and Southern India,
which numbers 2,900,000 adherents. Founded as a sect in the
twelfth century by a reformer who proclaimed the doctrine of
the equality of all who received the eightfold sacrament ordained
by him and wore on their persons the mystic /A«//ws emblematic
of the god Siva, the Lingayat community had begun by the
close of the seventeenth century to develop endogamous sub-
castes based upon the social distinctions which their founder had
expressly abjured. At the recent Census the process of trans-
forming the sect into a caste had advanced still further. In a
petition presented to the Government of India the members of
SOCIAL TYPES 79
the Lingayat community protested against the " most offensive
and mischievous order " that all of them should be entered in the
Census papers as belonging to the same caste, and asked that
they might be recorded as Virshaiv Brahmans, Kshatriyas,
Vaisyas, or Sudras, as the case might be. It would be difficult
to find a better illustration of the essentially particularist instinct
of the Indian people, of the aversion with which they regard
the doctrine that all men are equal, and of the growing attraction
exercised by the aristocratic scheme of society which their
ancient traditions enshrine. The legend of the four original
castes may have no historical foundation, but there can be no
question as to the spread of its influence or the strength of the
sentiment which it inspires.
A somewhat similar case is that of the Saraks of western
Bengal, Chutia Nagpur, and Orissa, who seem to be a Hinduized
remnant of the early Jain people to whom local legends ascribe
the ruined temples, the defaced images, and even the abandoned
copper mines of that part of Bengal. Their name is a variant of
Sravaka (Sanskrit "hearer"), the designation of the Jain laity;
they are strict vegetarians, never eating flesh, and on no account
taking life, and if in preparing their food any mention is made
of the word " cutting,*' the omen is deemed so disastrous that
everything must be thrown away. In Orissa they call them-
selves Buddhists and assemble once a year at the famous cave
temples of Khandagiri near Cuttack to make offerings to the
Buddhist images there and to confer on religious matters. But
these survivals of their ancient faith have not saved them from
the all-pervading influence of caste. They have split up into
endogamous groups based partly on locality and partly on the
fact that some of them have taken to the degraded occupation
of weaving, and they now form a Hindu caste of the ordinary
type. The same fate has befallen the Gharbari Atiths, the
Sannyasi, the Jugis, the Jati-Baishtams of Bengal, the Banhra
of Nepal— Newars, who were originally Buddhist priests but
abandoned celibacy and crystallized into a caste— and the
Bishnois and Sadhs of the United Provinces. The Bishnois of
Rohilkhand, says Mr. Burn,* are divided into nine endogamous
groups of sub-castes " called after the castes from which they
were recruited. New converts take their place in the appro-
priate sub-castes." In the case of the Sadhs "recruits are no
longer admitted, and it is peculiar that no endogamous or
exogamous divisions exist, the only restriction on marriage
* Census Report of the United Provinces, 1901, vol. i. p. 214.
8o PEOPLE OF INDIA
being that intermarriage is forbidden between two families as
long as the recollection of a former marriage connexion between
them remains. The instance is of special interest as the quality
maintained by the tenets of the sect; which has developed into a
caste, has not yet been destroyed, as is usual in such cases."
A still more remarkable, because a more modern, case is
mentioned by Sir Henry Cotton, who states that "the more self-
assertive portion of the Brahmo community " appears to be " in
the course of forming" a new caste. All these curious develop-
ments serve to illustrate the comparatively insignificant part that
religion has played in the shaping of the caste system, and the
strength of the tendency to morcellement, to splitting up into
fractional groups, that is characteristic of Hindu society. So
long as the sectarian instinct confines itself to expressing a mere
predilection for one god rather than another, or simply develops
a new cult, however fantastic, which permits men to indulge in
the luxury of religious eccentricity without quitting the narrow
circle of their social environment, its operations are undisturbed
and the sects which it forms may flourish and endure. But
directly it invades the social sphere and seeks to unify and
amalgamate groups of theoretically different origin it comes in
contact with a force too strong for it and has to give way. Race
dominates religion ; sect is weaker than caste.
Even Christianity has not altogether escaped the subtle
contagion of caste. Almost everywhere in India a tendency
has been observed on the part of converts from Hinduism to
group themselves according to the castes to which they
originally belonged. This sometimes assumes the form of a
division into two groups, the higher restricted to those who
were members of the ' clean ' castes from whom Brahmans can
take water, while the lower comprises all those of inferior
rank. On the west coast the retention of caste distinctions
was deliberately recognized by the Portuguese missionaries,
and the results of this policy have survived down to the present
day. The Indian Roman Catholic Christians of the Konkan,
the low-lying strip of coast between the Western Ghats and
the sea, are divided into Bambans or Bammans (Brahmans),
Charodas or Chardos (Kshatriyas or Chhatris), Sudirs (Sudras),
Renders (drawers of palm-juice), Gavids or Gavdas (salt-
makers), Modvals (washermen), Kumbars (potters), and Kaphris
or Sidis (labourers), whose thick lips, slanting foreheads and
curly beards suggest an infusion of Somali blood. Inter-
marriages among these groups, while not absolutely forbidden,
SOCIAL TYPES 8i
are said to be rare, though in South Kanara such unions "are
gradually becoming more frequent in cases in which members
of castes other than the Bammans have succeeded in obtaining
a good position in the official, legal, or commercial community." *
Infant marriage is forbidden among the Konkani Christians,
but girls are married as soon as they are twelve years old, and
sometimes even before that age under a special dispensation
from the Bishop. Widow marriage, though not forbidden, " is
as much condemned as among the pagans." Many of them,
especially the women, cannot bear the idea of eating beef, and
they observe the characteristic Hindu prohibition against a
wife addressing or speaking of her husband by his name. The
marriage ceremony is performed in Church according to
Christian rites, but it is preceded and followed by observances
which are palpable survivals from the Hindu customs of
betrothal and marriage. These include the formal bathing of
the betrothed couple, the giving of a dinner to the poor for the
benefit of the deceased ancestors of the family, the tying of a
tali or lucky necklace (which sometimes has a cross or a figure
of the infant Jesus as a pendant) round the bride's neck, the
exchange of presents, and the formal transfer of the bride to
her husband's family.
Further south in the little State of Cochin on the Malabar
coast, where Christianity has been established for many
centuries and is believed by some authorities to date from
apostolic times, a different principle has asserted itself In the
course of ages, disputes as to theological doctrine, ecclesiastical
ritual, or spiritual supremacy have led to the formation among
the non-Protestant Christians in Cochin of a number of sects —
the Roman Catholics of the Latin rite, who use the Liturgy
of the Romish Church in Latin, and are further subdivided
into the Three Hundred, the Five Hundred, and the Seven
Hundred, obscure schisms possibly derived merely from the
number of families that were converted by the Portuguese
missionaries on successive occasions ; the Roman Catholics of
the Syrian rite, who used the Romish Liturgy in ancient
Syriac; the Chaldean Syrians, who are under the Patriarch
* Manual of South Kanara. J. Sturrock, l.c.s., 1894. Vide aho Bombay Gazetteer,
vol. XV., pan i., 1883, p. 382 ; and Indian Caste, by Mr. J. A. Saldanha, 1904. [" Broadly
speaking, it may be said that the Catholic Church tolerates, the Protestant Church condemns,
this idea of caste. The practical outcome of the matter is that among high caste people the
Roman Catholic Church alone has made appreciable progress." Some missionaries of that
Church, however, dispute these conclusions, Madras Census Report, 191 1, vol. i. p. 60
et seq.'\
R, PI. 6
82 PEOPLE OF INDIA
of Babylon, and differ in several minute points of ritual from
the Romo-Syrians ; the Jacobite Syrians, who are under the
Patriarch of Antioch ; and the Reformed or St. Thomas Syrians,
an offshoot of the Jacobites who recognize the supremacy
neither of the Pope nor of the Patriarch of Antioch and obey a
Bishop of their own. These last have come to some extent
under Protestant influence, and they insist upon the title of St.
Thomas Syrians as marking their close adherence to the teach-
ing and ritual of the apostolic age. They deny that the Bible
should be interpreted by the traditions of the Church ; they
reject confession, absolution, fasting, the invocation of Saints,
and the veneration of relics ; they object to masses for the dead
and dispute the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. Of these
seven sects the first five appear to have crystallized into regular
castes between the members of which no intermarriage is
possible. The two branches of the Jacobite Syrians still
intermarry, subject to a further distinction between residents
of the northern and southern divisions of the State, the former
of whom claim to be superior to the latter on the ground of
their descent from the first colonists from Syria.*
(iv) Castes forn^ed by crossing. — Modern criticism has been
especially active in its attacks on that por-
^'""by erotsing."'^* tion of the traditional theory which derives
the multitude of mixed or inferior castes from
an intricate series of crosses between members of the original
four. No one can examine the long lists which purport to
illustrate the working of this process without being struck by
much that is absurd and inconsistent. But in India it does not
necessarily follow that, because the individual applications of a
principle are ridiculous, the principle itself can have no founda-
tion in fact. The last thing that would occur to the literary
theorists of those times, or to their successors \he pandits oi \.o-
day, would be to go back upon actual facts, and to seek by
analysis and comparison to work out the true stages of evolution.
They found, as I infer from plentiful experience of my own,
the a priori method simpler and more congenial. That at least
did not compel them to pollute their souls' by the study ot
plebeian usage. Having once got hold of a formula, they
insisted, like Thales and his contemporaries, on making it
account for the entire order of things. Thus, castes which were
compact tribes, castes which had been developed out of corpora-
tions like the mediaeval trade guilds, and castes which expressed
* [C. Achyuta Menon, The Cochin State Manual, 1911, p. 217 et seq.'l
SOCIAL TYPES 83
the distinction between fishing and hunting, agriculture and
handicrafts, were all supposed to have been evolved by inter-
breeding.
But the initial principle, though it could not be stretched to
explain everything, nevertheless rests upon a residuum of
historical fact. It happens that we can still observe its workings
among a number of Dravidian tribes, which, though not yet
drawn into the vortex of Brahmanism, have been in some
degree affected by the example of Hindu organization. As
regards inter-tribal marriages, they seem to be in a stage of
development through which the Hindus themselves may have
passed. A man may marry a woman of another tribe, but the
offspring of such unions do not become members of either the
paternal or maternal groups, but belong to a distinct endoga-
mous aggregate, the name of which often denotes the precise
cross by which it was started. Among the large tribe of
Mundas we find, for instance, nine such groups — Khangar-
Munda, Kharia-Munda, Konkpat-Munda, Karanga-Munda,
Mahili-Munda, Nagbansi-Munda, Oraon-Munda, Sad-Munda,
Savar-Munda — descended from intermarriages between Munda
men and women of other tribes.* The Mahilis again have five
sub-tribes of this kind, and themselves trace their descent to
the union of a Munda with a Santal woman. Illustrations of
this sort might be multiplied almost indefinitely. The point to
be observed is that the sub-tribes formed by inter-tribal crossing
are from an early stage complete endogamous units, and that
they tend continually to sever their slender connexion with the
parent group, and stand forth as independent tribes. As soon
as this comes to pass, and a functional or territorial name
disguises their mixed descent, the process by which they have
been formed is seen to resemble closely that by which the
standard Indian tradition seeks to explain the appearance of
other castes alongside of the classical four.
Within the limits of the regular caste system Mr. Gait
mentions the Shagirdpeshas of Bengal as the only true caste in
this Province " which takes its origin from miscegenation, and
which is still adding to its numbers in the same way. Amongst
the members of the higher castes of Orissa who do not allow
widow remarriage, and also amongst the Kayasth immigrants
from Bengal, it is a common practice to take as maid-servants
and concubines women belonging to the lower clean castes,
such as Chasa and Bhandari. The offspring of these
* [See Sarat Chandra Roy, The Mundas and their Country, 1912, p. 400 et seq.\
84 PEOPLE OF INDIA
maid-servants are known as Shagirdpesha. They form a regular
caste of the usual type and are divided into endogamous groups
with reference to the caste of the male parent. Kayasth
Shagirdpeshas will not intermarry with Karan Shagirdpeshas,
nor Rajput Shagirdpeshas (their number is very small) with
those of Kayasth origin, but intermarriage between the Shagird-
peshas of Karan and of Khandait descent sometimes takes
place, just as such marriages sometimes occur between
persons belonging to the castes to which they owe their
origin. The caste of the mother makes no difference in
the rank of the children, but those who can count several
generations from their original progenitor rank higher than
those in whose case the stigma of illegitimacy is more
recent.
" The word Shagirdpesha, which is commonly pronounced
Sagarpesha, means servant, and is applied with reference to
the traditional occupation, which is domestic service. It is
said that the word should properly be confined to the offspring
of Bengali Kayasths, and that the illegitimate children of Karans
and other castes of Orissa should be called Krishnapakshi, or
Antarpua, or, again, Antarkaran, Antarkhandait, etc. ' This
distinction, however, is not observed in practice. The relation-
ship between the legitimate children of a man of good caste and
their bastard brothers and sisters is recognized, but the latter
cannot eat with the former, hence they are called bhdtdntar, or
separated by rice. They are entitled to maintenance, but
cannot inherit their father's property so long as there are any
legitimate heirs. They usually serve in their father's house
until they grow up and marry ; male children are then usually
given a house and a few bighas of land for their support. The
Shagirdpeshas are also sometimes known as Goldm (slave)— a
term which is also applied to the Sudras of Eastern Bengal,
who appear in several respects to be an analogous caste.
Another appellation is Kothd po (own son), as distinguished
from Prajd po (tenant son), which formerly denoted a purchased
slave. Their family name is usually Singh or Das. Some of
them have taken to cultivation, but they will not themselves
handle the plough. They usually live in great poverty. It is
said to be impossible for a Shagirdpesha under any circum-
stances to obtain admission to his father's caste. If a man of
that caste were to marry a Shagirdpesha woman he would be
outcasted and his children would become Shagirdpesha.
Persons of higher rank (usually outcasts) are admitted to the
SOCIAL TYPES 85
caste. A feast is given by the applicant for admission, and he
is then formally acknowledged as a caste-follow.
" In their social observances the Shagirdpeshas follow the
practices of the higher castes. They forbid the remarriage of
widows and do not allow divorce. Polygamy is only permitted
vi^hen good cause is shown, e.g., if the first wife is barren or
diseased. They belong to the Vaishnava sect, worship the
ordinary Hindu gods, and employ good Brahmans. The bind-
ing portion of the marriage ceremony is the joining of the
hands of bride and bridegroom by the officiating priest.
Shagirdpeshas of the first generation, being illegitimate, cannot
perform their father's sradh. They usually cremate their dead.
In spite of their number (about 47,000) the caste is said to be
of quite recent origin, and it is asserted that it did not exist a
century and-a-half ago." *
An older and more instructive illustration, dating possibly
from before the Christian era, of the forrtiation of a caste by
crossing, is furnished by the Khas of Nepal, who are the off-
spring of mixed marriages between Rajputs or Brahman
immigrants and the Mongolian women of the country. " The
females," t says Hodgson, "wouldindeed welcome the polished
Brahmans to their embraces, but their offspring must not be
stigmatized as the infamous progeny of a Brahman and a
Mlechha — must, on the contrary, be raised to eminence in the
new order of things proposed to be introduced by their fathers.
To this progeny also, then, the Brahmans, in still greater
defiance of their creed, communicated the rank of the second
order of Hinduism ; and from these two roots, mainly, sprung
the now numerous, predominant, and extensively ramified tribe
of the Khas, originally the name of a small clan of creedless
barbarians, now the proud title of the Kshatriyas, or military
order of the kingdom of Nepal. The offspring of original Khas
females and of Brahmans, with the honours and rank of the
second order of Hinduism, got the patronymic titles of the first
order, and hence the key to the anomalous nomenclature of so
many stirpes of the military tribes of Nepal is to be sought in
the nomenclature of the sacred order. It may be added, as
remarkably illustrative of the lofty spirit of the Parbattias, that
in spite of the yearly increasing sway of Hinduism in Nepal,
and of the various attempts of the Brahmans in high office to
* Census Refort , Bengal, 1901, vol. i., p. 433, et seq.
t Essay on the Origin and Classification of the Military Tribes of Nepal, J. A. S. B ,
1833, p. 217.
86 PEOPLE OF INDIA
procure the abolition of a custom so radically opposed to the
creed both parties now profess, the Khas still insist that the
fruit of commerce (marriage is out of the question) between
their females and males of the sacred order shall be ranked as
Kshatriyas, wear the thread, and assume the patronymic title."
The Khas now call themselves Chhattris or Kshatriyas — a
practice which, according to Colonel Vansittart,* dates from
Sir Jang Bahadur's visit to England in 1850. Allied to the
Khas are the Ektharia and the Thakurs, both of Rajput
parentage on the male side, the Thakur ranking higher because
their ancestors are supposed to have been rulers of various
petty States in Nepal. The Matwala Khas, again, are the
progeny of Khas men and Magar women, and the Uchai
Thakurs are of the same lineage on the female side.
The Sudra caste of Eastern Bengal, the Rajbansi Baruas of
Chittagong, believed to be the offspring of Burmese fathers
and Bengali mothers, the Vidurs of the Central Provinces, who
claim Brahman parentage on the male side and, though now
marrying among themselves, still receive into their community
the children of mixed unions between Brahmans and women
of other castes, are minor instances of the same process. The
Boria caste of Assam is said by Mr. Allen f to comprise the
offspring of Brahman and Ganak widows And their descendants,
and the children of Brahmans who attained puberty before
marriage, and so had to be married to men of lower caste.
The name Boria is popularly derived from ban, a widow, but
the members of the caste prefer to call themselves Sut or Suta,
the Shastric designation of the children of a Brahman woman
by a Kshatriya, or Vaisya father. Borias are more numerous
in Nowgong than in any other district of Assam, though the
number of Brahmans there is comparatively small. On point-
ing this out to an educated Brahman of Nowgong, Mr. Allen
received the singular explanation that "the Gosains and
Mohants of that district had put pressure upon householders
to give away young Brahman widows in marriage to men of
lower castes to prevent the society from becoming demoralized."
(v) Castes of the national type. — Where there is neither nation
nor national sentiment, it may seem para-
(v) a lona cas es. jQ^ical to talk about a national type of
caste. There exist, however, certain groups, usually regarded
as castes at the present day, which cherish traditions of bygone
* Notes on Nepal, 1896, p. 89.
t Census Report of Assam, 1901, vol. i., p. 124, et seq.
SOCIAL TYPES 87
sovereignty and seem to preserve traces of an organization
considerably more elaborate than that of an ordinary tribe.
The Newars, a mixed people of Mongoloid origin, who were
the predominant race in Nepal proper until the country was
conquered and annexed by the- Gurkha Prithi Narayan in 1768,
may be taken as an illustration of such a survival. The group
comprises both Hindus and Buddhists. The latter are at
present slightly more numerous, but the former are said to be
gaining ground by more frequent conversions. The two com-
munities are quite distinct, and each is divided into an elaborate
series of castes. Thus, among the Hindu Newars, we find at
the top of the social scale the Devabhaja, who are Brahmans
and spiritual teachers ; the Surjyabansi Mai, members of the old
royal family ; the Sreshta, consisting of ministers and other
officials ; and the Japu, who are cultivators. Then comes an inter-
mediate group including, among others, the Awa, masons ; the
Kawmi, carpenters and sweetmeat-makers, an odd combination
of trades ; the Chhipi, dyers of cloth ; the Kau, blacksmiths ; and
the Nau, barbers. Lowest of all are the Pasi, washermen ; the
Jugi, tailors and musicians ; the Po, sweepers, burners of dead
bodies, and executioners ; and the Kulu, drummakers and
curriers.
If the Marathas can be described as a caste, their history
and traditions certainly stamp them as a caste of the national
type. They number five millions at the present census,
3,279,000 in Bombay, 1,538,000 in Hyderabad, 79,000 in Madras,
45,000 in Mysore, 93,000 in the Central Provinces and Berar,
28,000 in Central India. According to Mr. Enthoven,* the
Bombay Marathas "may be classified as a tribe with two
divisions, Maratha and Maratha Kunbi, of which the former
are hypergamous to the latter, but were not originally
distinct. It remains to be explained that the Kunbis also
consist of two divisions, Desh Kunbis numbering 1,900,000,
and Konkani Kunbis, of which there are 350,000 recorded.
Intermarriage between these divisions is not usual. The
barrier, however, seems to be purely geographical. It may
not withstand the altered conditions due to improvements in
communications, and it is not apparently based on any religious
prohibition of intermarriages. The fact that the Kunbis consist
of two branches muat, however, be borne in mind in attempting
to arrive at a correct description of the tribal configuration."
The highest class of Marathas is supposed to consist of
* Census Report of Bombay, 1901, vol. i., p. 183, et seq.
88 PEOPLE OF INDIA
ninety-six families, who profess to be of Rajput descent and to
represent the Kshatriyas of the traditional system. They wear
the sacred thread, marry their daughters before puberty, and
forbid widows to marry again. But their claim to kinship with
the Rajput is effectually refuted by the anthropometric data
now published, and by the survival among them of kuldevaks
or totems, such as the sun-flower, the kadamba tree {Nauclea
Kadamba), the mango, the conch-shell, the peacock's feather,
and turmeric, which are worshipped at marriages and at the
ceremony of dedicating a new house, while their close con-
nexion with the Kunbis is attested by the fact that they take
Kunbi girls as wives, though they do not give their own
daughters to Kunbi men. A wealthy Kunbi, however,
occasionally gains promotion to and marries into the higher
grade and claims brevet rank as a Kshatriya. The fact seems
to be that the ninety-six superior families represent Kunbis who
came to the front during the decline 'of the Moghal Empire,
won for themselves princedoms or estates, claimed the rank
of landed gentry, and asserted their dignity by refusing their
daughters to their less distinguished brethren.
(vi) Castes formed by migration. — If members of a caste leave
(vi) Castes formed their original habitat and settle permanently
by migration. jn another part of India, the tendency is for
them to be separated from the parent group and to develop into
a distinct caste. The stages of the process are readily traced.
In the first instance it is assumed that people who go and live
in foreign parts must of necessity eat forbidden food, worship
alien gods, and enter into relations with strange women.
Consequently, when they wish to take wives from among their
own people, they find that their social status has been lowered,
and that they have to pay for the privilege of marrying within
the parent group. This luxury grows more and more expen-
sive, and in course of time the emigrants marry only among them-
selves and thus become a sub-caste usually distinguished by a
territorial name, such as Jaunpuria, Tirhutia, Barendra, and the
like. Mr. Gait has pointed out that "the prolonged residence of
persons of Bihar castes in Bengal generally results in their
being placed under a ban as regards marriage," * and I had
observed some years earlier that up-country barbers who settle
in Bengal are called khotta and practically form a separate sub-
caste, as Bengali barbers will not intermarry with them, while
they are regarded as impure by the barbers of Upper India and
* yCensus Report, Bengal, igoi.vol. i., p. 355 note?^
SOCIAL TYPES 89
Bihar by reason of their having taken up their residence in
Bengal. If the process of differentiation is carried a step further
(as indeed usually happened before the potept influence of
railways had made itself felt), and the settlers assume a dis-
tinctive caste-name, all traces of their original affinities dis-
appear and there remains only a dim tradition of their migration
" from the West," the quarter whence, in Bengal at any rate,
promotion is believed to come. Owing to this loss of identity
the number of instances in which we can point with certainty
to the formation of castes by migration is comparatively small.
Mr. Russell, writing of the Central Provinces, tells us how a
native gentleman said to him, in speaking of his people, that
" when a few families of Khedawal Brahmans from Gujarat first
settled in Damoh, they had the greatest difficulty in arranging
their marriages. They could not marry with their caste-fellows
in Gujarat, because their sons and daughters could not 'estab-
lish themselves,' that is, could not prove their identity as
Khedawal Brahmans ; but since the railway has been opened,
intermarriages take place freely with other Khedawals in
Gujarat and Benares." * So the geographical isolation of
Chhattisgarh, the country of the " thirty-six forts " of the
Haihaibansi dynasty of Ratanpur, has led to the social
isolation of the inhabitants. "The Chhattisgarhi Brahmans,"
says Mr. Russell, " form a class apart, and up - country
Brahmans will have nothing to do with them." The contempt
in which the people of this tract are held by their neighbours,
finds expression in the following depreciatory verses :
JVah hai Chhattisgarhi desk,
Jahdn Gond hai naresh.
Niche burst upar khdt,
Lagd hai chongi kd thdt,
Pahile jutd pichhe bat.
Tab dwe Chhattisgarhi hat.
Which may be rendered thus : —
" This is Clihattisgarh, where the Gond is king of the jungle,
Under his bed is a fire, for he cannot pay for a blanket ;
Nor for a hookah indeed, — a leaf-pipe holds his tobacco.
Kick him soundly first and then he will do what you tell him." +
The verses reflect the intolerant and domineering attitude of the
Indo-Aryan towards the Dravidian, of the high-caste man
towards the low, that has been characteristic of Indian society
from the earliest times down to the present day.
* {^Census Report, Central Provinces, 1901, vol. i., p. 156.]
t [Ibid., p. 147.]
90 PEOPLE OF INDIA
A good illustration of the formation of a caste by migration
is to be found in the traditions of the Nambudri or Namputiri
Brahmans of Malabar. These Brahmans claim to have come
to the west coast from various sacred localities in Kathiawar
and the northern Deccan ; Mr. Fawcett describes them as "the
truest Aryans in Southern India ;"* and their complexion and
features seem to lend some support to the tradition which
assigns to them a foreign origin. Whatever their original
stock may have been, they are now an entirely separate caste
differing from the Brahmans of other parts of India by their
systematic practice of polygamy ; by their rejection of infant
marriage ; by their restriction of marriage to the eldest son,
the other brothers entering into polyandrous relations with
Nayar women; and by the curious custom of ceremonial fishing
which forms part of their marriage ritual. Another instance of
the same process is furnished by the Rarhi Brahmans of Bengal.
The current legend is that early in the eleventh century a.d.,
Adisura or Adisvara, Raja of Bengal, finding the Brahmans then
settled in his dominions too ignorant to perform for him certain
Vedic ceremonies, applied to the Raja of Kanauj for priests
conversant with the sacred ritual of the Aryans. In answer to
his request there were sent to him five Brahmans of Kanauj,
one of them a son of the Raja, who brought with them their
wives, their sacred fire, and their sacrificial implements. It is
said that Adisura was at first disposed to treat them with
scanty respect, but he was soon compelled to acknowledge his
mistake and to make terms with people who had a monopoly o
the magical powers associated with the correct performance
of ancient ritual. He then made over to them five populous
villages, the number of which was subsequently increased to
fifty-six. The tradition seems to chronicle an early brahmottar
grant, the first perhaps of the long series of similar transactions
that has played so important a part in the history of land
tenures, in the development of caste influence and custom,
and in promoting the spread of orthodox Hinduism throughout
Bengal. Adisura did what the Rajas of outlying and un-
orthodox tracts of country (such as Bengal was in the eleventh
century) have constantly done since and are doing still. A
local chief, far removed from the great centres of Brahmanical
lore, somehow becomes aware of his ceremonial shortcomings.
In many cases, as indeed is narrated of Adisura himself, a
wandering priest brings home to him that his outlandish ritual
* [Bulletin Aladras Government Museum., vol. iii. part i., p. 33.]
SOCIAL TYPES 91
is not up to the orthodox standard. He sends for Brahmans,
gives them grants of land near his own residence, and proceeds
at their dictation to reform his ways on the model of the
devout kings whom Brahmanical literature holds up as the ideal
for a Raja to follow. The Brahmans find for him a pedigree of
respectable antiquity and provide him with a family legend,
and in course of time, by dint of money and diplomacy, he
succeeds in getting himself recognized as a member of the
local Rajput community. But that does not mean that the real
Rajputs will acknowledge his pretensions ; nor will Brahmans
who have attached themselves to his fortunes retain their
status among the community from which they have broken off.
It will be said of them, as is said of the Brahman immigrants
into Bengal, that they have married local women, eaten for-
bidden food, adopted strange customs, and forgotten the endless
details of the elaborate ritual which they set forth to teach-
As priests in partibus infidelium they will be regarded with
suspicion by the Brahmans of their original stock ; they will
have to pay high for brides from among their own people, and
eventually will be cut off altogether from the jus connubii.
When that stage has been reached they will have become to all
intents and purposes a separate caste retaining the generic
name of Brahman, but forming a new species and presenting a
distinctive type. And this great change will have been brought
about by the simple fact of their abandoning the habitat of their
original community.
Occasionally it may happen that social promotion, rather
than degradation, results from a change of residence. In
Chanda, a remote district of the Central Provinces, a number of
persons returned themselves as Barwaiks and the designation,
being unknown in the Census office, was referred to the district
officer for explanation. It was stated in reply that the Barwaiks
were a clan of Rajputs from Orissa who had come to Nagpur
in the train of the Bhonsla Rajas and had taken military service
under them. Now in Chutia Nagpur the Baraiks or Chik-
Baraiks are a sub-caste of the Pans — the helot weavers and
basketmakers who perform a variety of servile functions for the
organized Dravidian tribes and used to live in a kind of Ghetto
in the villages of the Kandhs (Khonds) for whom they purveyed
children destined for human sacrifice and, when they had failed
to steal other people's children, sold their own for this ghastly
purpose. Mr. Russell observes that " though it is possible that
the coincidence may be accidental, still there seems good reason
92 PEOPLE OF INDIA
to fear that it is from these humble beginnings that the Barwaik
sept of Rajputs in Chanda must trace its extraction. And it is
clear that before the days of railways and the half-anna post an
imposture of this sort must have been practically impossible of
detection."* The conjecture seems a plausible one, and the
fact that Baraik is a title actually in use among the Jadubansi
Rajputs may have helped the Pans to establish their fictitious
rank.
{vii) Castes formed by changes of custom. — The formation of
(vii) Castes formed "^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^ Consequence of the neglect
by changes of of established usage or the adoption of new
customs. ceremonial practices or secular occupations
has been a familiar incident of the caste system from the earliest
times. We are told in Manut bowmen of the three tAvice-born
castes, who have not received the sacrament of initiation at the
proper time, or who follow forbidden occupations, become
Vratyas or outcasts, intercourse with whom is punished with a
double fine, and whose descendants are graded as distinct
castes. Living as a Vratya is a condition involving of itself
exclusion from the original caste, and a Brahman who performs
sacrifices for such persons has to do penance. The idea of such
changes of status is inherent in the system, and illustrations of
its application are plentiful. Sometimes it figures in the tradi-
tions of a caste under the form of a claim to a more distinguished
origin than is admitted by current opinion. The Skanda
Purana, for example, recounts an episode in Parasu Rama's
raid upon the Kshatriyas, the object of which is to show that the
Kayasths are by birth Kshatriyas of full blood, who by reason
of their observing the ceremonies of the Sudras are called
Vratya or incomplete Kshatriyas. The Babhans or Bhuinhars
of the United Provinces and Bihar are supposed, according to
some legends, to be Brahmans who lost status by taking to
agriculture, and the Mongoloid Kochh of Northern Bengal
describe themselves as Rajbansis, or as Vratya or Bhanga
(broken) Kshatriyas — a designation which enables them to pose
as an outlying branch of that exalted community who fled to
these remote districts before the wrath of Parasu Rama, and
there allowed their characteristic observances to fall into disuse.
At the present day the most potent influence in bringing about
elevations or depressions of social status which may result
ultimately in the formation of new castes is the practice of
* [Census Report, Central Provinces, 1901, vol. i., p. I57-]
t \Laws, ii. 39, x. 20, xi. 63.]
SOCIAL TYPES 93
widow marriage. With the advance of orthodox ideas that may
plausibly be ascribed to the extension of railways and the
diffusion of primary education it dawns upon some members of
a particular caste that the custom of marrying widows is highly
reprehensible, and with the assistance of their Brahmans they
set to work to discourage it. The first step is to abstain from
intermarriage with people who practise the forbidden thing,
and thus to form a sub-caste which adopts a high-sounding
name derived from some famous locality like Ajodhya or
Kanauj, or describes itself as Biydhut or Behutd, " the married
ones," by way of emphasizing the orthodox character of their
matrimonial arrangements.' Thus the Awadhia or Ayodhya
Kurmis of Bihar and the Kanaujia Kurmis of the United Pro-
vinces pride themselves on prohibiting the remarriage of
widows and are endeavouring to establish a shadowy title to be
recognized as some variety of Kshatriya, in pursuance of which,
with singular ignorance of the humble origin of the great Maratha
houses, they claim kinship with Sivaji, Sindhia and the Bhonsla
family of Nagpur. In Bihar they have succeeded in attaining a
higher rank than ordinary Kurmis. Brahmans take water from
their hands ; the funeral ceremony is performed on the twelfth
day after death, according to the custom of the higher castes ;
and kachchi food prepared by them is eaten by Kahars, Bhats,
and other castes who would refuse to accept food of this kind
from Sudras. They have abandoned domestic service, and the
wealthier members of the group exchange presents with the
higher castes and are invited by them to ceremonial functions.
But although the Awadhias have achieved complete practical
separation from the main body of Kurmis no one accepts them
as Kshatriyas or Rajputs, nor are they recognized by Hindu
public opinion as forming a distinct caste. In the Punjab Sir
Denzil Ibbetson* wrote in 1881 that the Gaurwa Rajputs of
Gurgaon and Delhi, though retaining the title of Rajput in
deference to the strength of caste-feeling and because the
change in their customs was then too recent for the name to
have fallen into disuse, yet had, for all purposes of equality,
communion, or intermarriage, ceased to be Rajputs since they
took to karewa or widow marriage. And the distinction
between the Jats and Rajputs, both sprung from a common
Indo-Aryan stock, is marked by the fact that the former
practise and the latter abstain from a usage which more than
any other is regarded as a crucial test of relative social position.
* \Census Report, 1881, para. 446.]
94 PEOPLE OF INDIA
In allusion to this fact one of the rhyming proverbs of the
Punjab makes a Jat father say^ — " Come, m}' daughter, and be
married; if this husband dies there are plenty more." The
same test applies in the Kangra Hills, the most exclusive Hindu
portion of the Punjab, where Musalman domination was never
fully established, and the Brahman and Kshatriya occupy posi-
tions most nearly resembling those assigned to them by Manu.
Here the line between the Thakkar and Rathi castes, both
belonging to the lower classes of Hill Rajputs, is said to consist
in the fact that Rathis do and Thakkars do not ordinarily
practise widow marriage.
In Southern India movements of the same sort may be
observed. Among the begging castes which form nearly one
per cent, of the population of the Tamil country in Madras, the
Pandarams rank highest in virtue of their abstention from meat
and alcohol and more especially of their prohibition of widow
marriage. The Pancharamkatti division of the Idaiyan
shepherd caste allow widow marriage but connect it with the
peculiar neck ornament which their women wear, and say that
" Krishna used to place a similar ornament round the necks of
the Idaiyan widows of whom he was enamoured, to transform
them from widows into married women to whom pleasure was
not forbidden." * The story seems to be an expostfacto apology
for the practice. The Jatapu again, a branch of the Kandh
(Kondh) tribe which has developed into a separate caste, are
beginning to discourage widow marriage by way of emphasizing
the distinction between themselves and their less civilized
brethren.! In Baroda, according to Mr. Dalal,| widow marriage
is allowed by some degraded sub-castes of Brahmans, Tapo-
dhan, Vyas Sarasvat, Rajgor, Bhojak, Tragalaand Koligor, which
are virtually distinct castes, and also by the Kathis, Marathas,
Rajputs, Taghers, and Vadhels. "The higher families, among
castes allowing remarriage of widows, do not, as a rule, have
recourse to it, as such a marriage is considered undignified for
grown-up women. It is this sense of honour and a desire to
pass for superior people which has put a stop to widow re-
marriage among an influential section of the Lewa Kunbis and
Sonis."
An account is given in the chapter on marriage and caste
of what may be called the internal structure of tribes and caste
* [Census Report, Madras, 1901, vol. i., p. 155.]
t [Ibid; vol. i., p. 157.]
X [Census Report, Baroda, 1901, vol. i., p, 491.]
SOCIAL TYPES
95
Totemism.
in India — the various endogamous, exogamous, and hyper-
gamous divisions whicii restrict and regulate matrimony and
form the minor wheels of the vast and intricate machinery by
which Hindu society is controlled. From the point of view of
general ethnology considerable interest attaches to one par-
ticular kind of division, to those exogamous groups which are
based upon totems. The existence of tote-
mism in India on a large scale has been
brought to notice only in recent years : the enquiries instituted
in connexion with the census have added materially to our
knowledge of the subject; and special attention is being given
to it in the ethnographic survey now being conducted in all
British provinces and the more important Native States. No
apology therefore is needed for mentioning it at length here,
since it throws an important sidelight on the development of
castes from tribes. At the bottom of the social system, as
understood by the average Hindu, we find in the Dravidian
region of India a large body of tribes and castes each of which
is broken up into a number of totemistic septs. Each sept
bears the name of an animal, a tree, a plant, or of some material
object, natural or artificial, which the members of that sept are
prohibited from killing, eating, cutting, burning, carrying, using,
etc. Well-defined groups of this type are found among the
Dravidian Santals and Oraons, both of whom still retain their
original language, worship non-Aryan gods, and have a fairly
compact tribal organization. The following are specimens
selected from among the seventy-three Oraon and the ninety-
one Santal septs : —
Oraon.
Santal.
Name of sept.
Totem.
Name of sept.
TotemT'
Tirki.
Young mice.
Ergo.
Rat.
Ekka.
Tortoise.
Murmu.
Nilgai.
Kispotta.
Pig's entrails.
Hansda.
Wild goose.
Lakra.
Hyena.
Marudi.
A kind of grass.
Bagh.
Tiger.
Besra.
Hawk.
Kujrar.
Oil from Kujrar
Hemron.
Betel palm.
tree.
Saren
The constellation
Cede.
Duck.
Pleiades.
Khoepa.
Wild dog.
Sankh.
Conch-shell.
Minji.
Eel.
Gua.
Areca nut.
Chirra.
Squirrel.
Kara.
Buffalo.
The Hos of Singhbhum and the Mundas of the Chutia
Nagpur plateau have also exogamous septs of the same type
as the Oraons and Santals, with similar rules as to the totem
being taboo to the members of the group. The lists given in
96 PEOPLE OF INDIA
The Tribes and Castes oy Bengal contain the names of 323 Munda
septs and 46 Ho septs. Six of the latter are found also among
the Santals. The other Ho septs appear to be mostly of the
local or communal type, such as are in use among the Kandhs,*
but this is not quite certain, and the point needs looking into
by some one well acquainted with the Ho dialect, who would
probably find little difficulty in identifying the names, as
the tribe is known to be in the habit of giving
n u la agpur. ^.^ places descriptive names having reference
to their natural characteristics. Nearly all the Munda sept
names are of the totem type, and the characteristic taboos
appear to be recognized. The Tarwar or Talwar sept, for
example, may not touch a sword, the Udbaru may not use the
oil of a particular tree, the Sindur may not use vermilion, the
Baghela may not kill or eat a quail, and, strangest of all, rice is
taboo to the Dhan sept, the members of which, though rice is
grown all round them, must supply its place with gondii or
millet. It is difficult not to be sceptical as to the rigid obser-
vance of this last prohibition.
A step higher in the social scale, according to Hindu esti-
mation, the Bhumij of Manbhum mark an early stage in the
course of development by which a non-Aryan tribe transforms
itself into a full-blown caste, claiming a definite rank in the
Brahmanical system. With the exception of a few residents of
outlying villages bordering on the Munda country of the
Chutia Nagpur plateau, the Bhumij have lost their original
language (Mundari), and now speak only Bengali. They
worship Hindu gods in addition to the fetishistic deities more
or less common to them and other Dravidians, but the tendency
is to keep the latter rather in the background and to relegate
the less formidable among them to the women and children to
be worshipped in a hole-and-corner kind of way, with the
assistanceof a tribal hedge-priest (Lqya), who is supposed to be
specially acquainted with their ways. Some of the leading men
of the tribe, who call themselves Bhuinhars, and hold large
landed tenures on terms of police service, have set up as
Rajputs, and keep a low class of Brahmans as their family
priests. They have, as a rule, borrowed the Rajput class titles,
but cannot conform with the Rajput rules of intermarriage, and
marry within a narrow circle of pseudo-Rajputs like themselves.
The rest of the tribe, numbering at the census of 1901, 370,239, are
* [For Kandh totemism, see J. E. Friend-Pareira, Toiemism among the Khonds, Journal
Asiatic Society, Bengal, vol. Ixxiii., part iii., 1905, p. 40 et seg.]
SOCIAL TYPES
97
divided into a number of exogamous groups, of which the follow-
ing are examples. It is curious to observe in a tribe still in a
state of transition, that one of the Brahmanical ^o^r«s, Sandilya,
has been borrowed from the higher castes, and in the process of
borrowing has been transformed from a Vedic saint into a
bird : —
Bhumi;.
Name of sept.
Totem.
Salrisi.
Sal fish.
Hansda.
Wild goose.
Leng.
Mushroom.
Sandilya.
A bird.
Hemron.
Betel palm.
Tumarung.
Pumpkin.
Nag.
Snake.
At a further stage in the same process of evolution, and on
a slightly superior social level, we find the Mahilis, Koras, and
Kurmis, all of whom claim to be members of the Hindu com-
munity. They have totemistic exogamous sections, of which
the following are fairly representative : —
Mahili.
KOEA.
Name of
section.
Dungri.
Turu.
Kanti.
Hansda.
Murmu.
Totem,
Dumur fig.
Ttiru grass.
Ear of any
animal.
Wild goose.
Nilgai.
Name of
section.
Kasyab.
Saula.
Kasibak.
Hansda.
Butku.
Sampu.
Totem,
Tortoise.
Sal fish.
Heron.
Wild goose.
Pig-
Bull.
KURMI.
Name of section.
Kesaria,
Tarar.
Dumuria.
Chonchmukruar.
Hastowar.
Jalbanuar.
Sankhowar.
Baghbanuar.
Katiar.
Totem,
Kesar grass.
Buffalo.
Dumur fig.
Spider.
Tortoise.
Net.
Shell ornaments.
Tiger.
Silk cloth.
Of these three castes the Mahilis appear to have broken off
most recently from the tribe. They still worship some of the
Santal gods in addition to the standard Hindu deities ; they
will eat food cooked by a Santal ; their caste organization is
supervised, like that of the Santals, by an official bearing the
title of Parganait; they permit the marriage of adults and
R, PI 7
98 PEOPLE OF INDIA
tolerate sexual intercourse before marriage within the limits of
the caste ; and they have not yet attained to the dignity of
employing Brahmans for ceremonial purposes. If I may
hazard a conjecture on so obscure a question, I should be
inclined to class them as Santals who took to the degraded
occupation of basket-making, and thus lost the jus connubii
within the tribe. In the case of the Koras there is no clue
to warrant their affiliation to any particular tribe, but their
traditions say that they came from the Chutia Nagpur plateau,
while their name suggests a Dravidian origin, and it seems
possible that they may be an offshoot of the Mundas, who some-
how sank from the status of independent cultivators to their
present position of earth-cutting and tank-digging labourers.
They allow adult marriage, their standard of feminine chastity is
low, and they have not yet fitted themselves out with Brahmans.
In the customary rules of inheritance which \.\i€vc panchdyat or
caste council administers, it is curious to find the usage known
in the Punjab as chundavand, by which the sons, however few,
of one wife take a share equal to that of the sons, however
many, of another. The Kurmis may perhaps be a Hinduized
branch of the Santals. The latter, who are more particular
about food, or rather about whom they eat with, than is
commonly supposed, will eat cooked rice with the Kurmis, and
according to one tradition regard them as elder brothers of
their own. However this may be, the totemism of the Kurmis
of Western Bengal stamps them as of Dravidian descent, and
clearly distinguishes them from the Kurmis of Bihar and the
United Provinces. They show signs of a leaning towards
orthodox Hinduism, and employ Brahmans for the worship of
Hindu gods, but not in the propitiation of rural and family
deities or in their marriage ceremonies.
One more instance of totemism in Bengal deserves special
notice here, as it shows the usage maintain-
n rissa. -^^^ j^^ ground among people of far higher
social standing than any of the castes already mentioned. The
Kumhars of Orissa take rank immediately below the Karan or
writer caste, and thus have only two or three large castes above
them. They are divided into two endogamous sub-castes —
Jagannathi or Oriya Kumhars, who work standing and make
large earthen pots, and Khattya Kumhars, who turn the wheel
sitting and make small earthen pots, cups, toys, etc. The
latter are immigrants from Upper India, whose number is
comparatively insignificant. For matrimonial purposes the
SOCIAL TYPES 99
Jagannathi Kumhars are subdivided into the following exoga-
mous sections : —
Jagannathi Kumhar.
Name of section.
Totem.
Kaundinya.
Tiger.
Sarpa.
Snake.
Neul.
Weasel,
Goru.
Cow.
Mudir.
Frog.
Bhadbhadria,
Sparrow.
Kurma.
Tortoise.
The members of each section express their respect for the
animal whose name the section bears by refraining from killing
or injuring it, and by bowing when they meet it. The entire
caste also abstain from eating, and even go so far as to worship
the sal fish, because the rings on its scales resemble the wheel
which is the symbol of the potter's art. The Khattya Kumhars
have only one section (Kasyapa), and thus, like the Rajbansis
of Rangpur, are really endogamous in spite of themselves.
The reason, no doubt, is that there are too few of them in
Orissa to fit up a proper exogamous system, and they content
themselves with the pretence of one. Both sub-castes appear
to be conscious that the names of their sections are open to
misconception, and explain that they are really the names of
certain saints who, being present at Daksha's horse sacrifice,
transformed themselves into animals to escape the wrath of
Siva, whom Daksha, like Peleus in the Greek myth, had
neglected to invite.* It may well be that we owe the
preservation of these interesting totemistic groups to the
ingenuity of the person who devised this respectable means of
accounting for a series of names so likely to compromise the
reputation of the caste. In the case of "the Khattya Kumhars,
the fact that their single section bears the name of Kasyapa,
while they venerate the tortoise (kachhap), and tell an odd
story by way of apology for the practice, may perhaps lend
weight to the conjecture, in itself a fairly plausible one, that
many of the lower castes in Bengal who are beginning to set
up as pure Hindus have taken advantage of the resemblance in
sound between Kachhap and Kasyap {chh and s both become sh
in colloquial Bengali) to convert a totemistic title into an
eponymous one, and have gone on to borrow such other
Brahmanical gotras as seemed to them desirable. If, for
example, we analyze the matrimonial arrangements of the
* Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, IV. p. 872.
100 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Bhars of Manbhum, many of whom are the hereditary personal
servants of the pseudo: Rajput Raja of Pachete, we find the
foregoing conjecture borne out by the fact that two out of
the seven sections which they recognize are called after the
peacock and the bel fruit, while the rest are eponymous. But
this is an exceptionally clear case of survival, and I fear it is
hardly possible to simplify the diagnosis of non-Aryan castes
by laying down a general rule, that all castes with a section
bearing the name Kasyapa who have not demonstrably
borrowed that appellation from the Brahmans, are probably
offshoots from some non-Aryan tribe.
In the Bombay Presidency the Katkaris of the Konkan will
not kill a red-faced monkey,* the Vaidus, or herbalists of Poona
will not kill a rabbit, and the Vadars whose name is derived
from the Vad {Ficus Indicd), will not fell the Indian fig tree.
The totemistic character of the septs which regulate marriage
is, however, most pronounced in the Kanara district which
borders on the Dravidian tract of the South. The rice-growing
caste of Halvakki Vakkal t in Kanara have a number of
exogamous septs or bali (lit. a creeper) which include the
tortoise, the sambhar, the monkey, the hog-deer, two sorts of
fish, saffron, the acacia and several other trees, and the axe
used for felling them. As we find them now, these groups are
^ ^ , plainly totemistic. Thus the members of
In Bombay. , ■' .,,..,,., ,
the screw-pine oah will neither cut the tree
nor pluck its flowers, and those of the Bargal bali will not kill
or eat the barga or mouse-deer. The followers of the Shirin
ball, named after the shirkal tree {Acacia speciosa), will not sit in
the shade of the tree, and refrain from injuring it in any way.
But in Kanara, as in Orissa, there is a tendency to disguise or
get rid of these compromising designations as the people who
own them rise in the social scale. The Halepaik,t once free-
booters and now peaceful tappers of toddy trees, are divided
into two endogamous groups, one dwelling on the coast and
taking its name (Tengina) from the cocoanut tree, and the other
living in the hills and calling itself Bainu after the sago-palm.
Each of these again contains a number of exogamous balis.
The Tengina have the wolf, the pig, the porcupine, the root of
the pepper plant, turmeric, and the river ; to which the Baintt
[* Etimographic Stiivey, Bombay, No. 134, 1909, pp. i, 12 ; Census Report, Bombay,
1911, vol. i, p. 269.]
[t Bombay Census Report, 191 1, vol. i., p. 263.]
[t Ethnographic Survey, Bombay, No. 12, 1904, p. 2 et seq.'\
SOCIAL TYPES loi
add the snake, the sambhar deer, and gold. The members of
the Ndgchampa group will not wear the flower of that name in
their hair, nor will the Kadave bait kill a sambhar. Two of the
baits are called after the low castes Mahar and Hole, and it is
curious to find that the other groups, though they will take
girls from these baits, will not give them their own daughters
to wife. Among the Halepaiks, unlike most of the Kanara
castes, the bait descends through the female line, that is to say,
the children belong to the bait of the mother, not of the father.
Similar groups are found among the Suppalig (musicians), the
Ager (salt workers and makers of palm-leaf umbrellas), the
Ahir (cowherds), and the Mukur (labourers and makers of
shell-lime). Several of these have the elephant for a totem and
may not wear ornaments of ivory.
Among the Bhils of the Satpura hills, who may be taken to
represent the furthest extension westward of the Dravidian
type, Major Luard * has discovered forty-one septs, all of
which are exogamous. Where two distinct septs have the
same totem intermarriage is prohibited. All the septs revere
and refrain from injuring or using their totems, and make a
formal obeisance when meeting or passing them, while the
women veil their faces. Among the totems are moths {ava),
snakes, tigers, bamboos, plpal and other trees, and a kind of
creeper called gaola on which the members may not tread, and
if they do so accidentally must apologize by making a salaam.
The Maoli sept have as their totem a sort of basket (kiliya) for
carrying grain which they are forbidden to use. The basket
resembles in shape the shrine of the goddess of a certain hill
where women may not worship. The Mori or peacock sept
may not knowingly tread on the tracks of a peacock, and if a
woman sees a peacock she must veil her face or look away.
The cult of the totem consists in seeking for the footprint of a
peacock in the jungle and making a salaam , „ ^ , , ■,.
'^ . „, •' ° , . , , , In Central India.
to it. The ground is then made smooth
round the footprint, a svdstika is inscribed in the dust, and
offerings of grain are deposited on a piece of red cloth. The
Sanyar sept worship the cat, but consider it unlucky for their
totem to enter their houses and usually keep a dog tied up at
the door to frighten it away. The Khangar caste of Bundel-
khand, which is cited by Major Luard as an illustration of the
conversion of a tribe into a caste, have among their totems
horses, iguanas, snakes, cows, elephants, alligators, rice,
[♦ Census Report, Central India, 1901, p. lCi%etseq.\
102 PEOPLE OF INDIA
turmeric, various trees and shrubs, and bricks. The members
of the Int or brick sept may not use bricks in their houses and
their domestic architecture is restricted to wattle and mud.
The report on the census of Central India also contains a
curious instance of the apparent degradation of a caste into a
tribe accompanied by the adoption oftotems. The Sondhias
or Sundhias of Malwa are said to be descended from the
survivors of a Rajput army who were defeated by Shah Jahan
and were ashamed to return to their homes. They therefore
stayed in Malwa, married Sondhia women, borrowed some of
the Sondhia totems and the Sondhia gods, and in course of
time allowed widows to marry again. Ten of the twenty-four
septs into which the tribe is divided still cherish traditions of
their Rajput origin and, while taking wives from the other
septs, refuse to give their daughters in return.
For the Central Provinces Mr. Russell * gives a long list of
totems found among sixteen castes and
In the Central tribes, including not only the' primitive
Provinces. ° j r
Gonds, Korkus, and Oraons, and the leather-
working Chamars, but also the pastoral Ahirs, the respect-
able carpenter caste (Barhai) and the Dhlmars, from all of
whom Brahmans can take water, while the last named are
commonly employed by them as personal servants. The list
comprises elephants, lions, tigers, bears, wolves, jackals,
buffaloes, goats, monkeys, peacocks, parrots, crocodiles, lizards,
tortoises, porcupines, scorpions, snakes, also salt, rice, Indian
corn, pumpkins, mangoes, cucumbers, lotus leaves, vermilion
and a variety of trees. All of these are regarded with reverence,
and members of the sept abstain from killing, using or naming
them.
In Madras the Boya shikari tx\\>^ of the Deccan is divided into
loi totemistic septs, among them chimaht,
ants ; eddulu, bulls ; jenneru, sweet-scented
oleander ; j'errabuiula, centipedes; yenumalu, buffaloes; and kusa,
grass. The Jatapu, the civilized division of the Kandhs or
Khonds, have among their totems koaloka, arrows ; kondacorri,
hill sheep ; kutraki, wild goats ; and vinka, white ants. The
large agricultural caste of Kapu, numbering nearly three
millions, have among their exogamous sections the cock
{kodt), the sheep {mekala), and a shrub known as tangedu
{Cassia auriculata). Of the 102 sections of the trading Komatis
six are totemistic, the totems including the tamarind, the tulsi
[* Census Report, Central Provinces, 1901, vol. i. jj. 189 et seq.']
SOCIAL TYPES 103
{Ocymum Sanctum), and the betel vine. The weaving Kurnis
count among their totems saffron, gold, cummin, gram, pepper,
buffaloes, and certain trees.*
In Assam the Garos have monkeys, horses, bears, mice,
lizards, frogs, crows, pumpkins, and a number of trees among
their totems ; the Kacharis recognize as totems the tree snail,
the muga insect, the sesamum plant, the kumra or giant gourd,
and the tiger. Members of the tiger sept
In. A ssfi.Tyi
have to throw away their earthenware
utensils by way of atonement when a tiger is killed. The
louse and the buffalo are the only animal totems on record
among the Khasi ; the Kuki have the dog ; the Lalung eggs,
fish, and pumpkins ; the Mikir totems appear to be mainly
vegetable. Our information, however, on totemism in Assam
is extremely scanty, and the subject requires further investiga-
tion, t
For Burma the facts, so far as they go, are thus stated by
Mr. Lowis : —
"The question of endogamy naturally leads to that of
totemism. Sir George Scott says in the Upper Burma Gazetteer:
' All the Indo-Chinese races have a predilection for totemistic
birth stories. Some claim to have sprung from eggs, some
from dogs, some from reptiles.' The Was, like a tribe in
North- West America cited by Mr. Andrew Lang in his Custom
and Myth, state that their primaeval ancestors were tadpoles.
The Palaungs trace their beginnings back to a Naga princess
who laid three eggs, out of the first of which their early
ancestor was hatched. An egg-laying Naga princess figures in
the early legendary history of the Mons or
Takings and points to an affinity between irma.
the Palaungs and the Talaings which the most recent linguistic
research has done much to strengthen. Up to the present
* [Much further information on totemism in Madras will be found in E. Thurston's,
Castes and Tribes of Southern India, vyi<), passim : L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer, Cochin
Tribes and Cfljto,|vols. i., ii. 1909-12.]
t [See note p. 64 supra. Mr. J. McSwiney has not been able to discover any trace of
totemistic exogamous clans, in the proper sense, in Assam ; i.e., though such sections may
have the names of animate or material objects, there does not seem to be any reverence felt
for the supposed ancestor. A possible exception is the Jyrwa Nongsiet clan in the west of
the Khasi Hills, which believes that its ancestors sprang from a bamboo plant, and in
deference to this belief, the members refuse to eat the small green shoots of the bamboo
which are the common food of the neighbouring clans {Census Report, Assam, 1911, vol. i.
p. 72). Elsewhere the evidence for the existence of totemism seems to be lacking or doubt-
ful, E. Stack, The Mikirs, 1908, p. 15 et seq. : T. C. Hodson, The Meitheis, 1908, p. 55
et seq., 118 : Id. The Naga Tribes of Manipur, 191 1, p. 71 etseq. : Lieut.-Col. J. Shakespear,
The Lushei Kttki Clans, 1912, p. 42).]
104 PEOPLE OF INDIA
time all attempts to ascertain the original of the Kachin family
names have failed. The totem of the Kachins should, if any-
thing, be a pumpkin, for legend has it that the whole race is
descended from a being who was made out of a pumpkin. So
far as I can discover, however, their belief in this singular
genesis does not deter Kachins from eating the vegetable to
which they owe their origin. They do not even appear to be
precluded from gathering it under certain circumstances or at
a particular period of the year, as is the case with some of the
Western Australian tribes." The Southern Chins, on the other
hand, are forbidden to kill or eat the King-Crow which hatched
" the orginal Chin egg." The bird is regarded in the light of a
parent, but, as it is not used as a crest by the Chins, Mr.
Houghton is of opinion that it cannot be looked upon as, pro-
perly speaking, a totem. The rising sun of the Red Karens is
something of the nature of a totemistic badge. Mr. Smeaton
refers to it as follows in his Loyal Karens of Burma : —
" Every Red Karen has a rising sun — the crest of his nobility — tattooed on his back. In
challenging to combat he does not slap his left folded arm with his right palm, as the rest of
the Karens and the Burmans do, but, coiling his right arm round his left side, strikes the
tattoo on his back. This action is supposed by him to rouse the magic power of the
symbol."
Sir George Scott, however, seems to detect no totemistic
inwardness in this tattoo mark, for he sums up the matter under
consideration in the following words : —
" Totemism also shows itself in the prescribed form of names for Shan and Kachin children
and in the changing or concealing of personal names, but, so far as is yet known, there is no
tribe which habitually takes its family name or has crests and badges taken from some
natural object, plant, or animal, though the limiting of marriages between the inhabitants of
certain villages only practised both by tribes of Karens and Kachins is no doubt the out-
growth of this totem idea."
Enough has been said to show that totemistic exogamy
prevails in India on a fairly large scale, that it is still in active
operation, and that it presents features which deserve further
investigation in their bearing on the problems of general
ethnology. On these grounds I venture to add a few comments
on the striking explanation of the origin of totemism which
was put forward by Sir J. G. Frazer in the Fortnightly Review
in 1899.* The subject is one of special interest in India
because the Indian evidence seems not only to point to con-
clusions different from those arrived at by Sir J. G. Frazer on the
basis of the Australian data published by Messrs. Spencer and
* Fortnightly Review, N. S., LXV, pp. 647-665, 835-852 ; [Totemism and Exogamy, 1910,
vol. i, p. 91 et seq."].
SOCIAL TYPES 105
Gillen,* but to suggest a new canon for determining the historical
value of ethnographic evidence in general.
" A totem," says Sir J. G. Frazer, " is a class of natural pheno-
mena or material object — most commonly a sir J. O-. Trazer's
species of animals or plants— between which theory of totemism.
and himself the savage believes that a certain intimate relation
exists. The exact nature of the relation is not easy to ascertain ;
various explanations of it have been suggested, but none has as
yet won general acceptance. Whatever it may be, it generally
leads the savage to abstain from killing or eating his totem, if
his totem happens to be a species of animals or plants.
Further, the group of persons who are knit to any particular
totem by this mysterious tie commonly bear the name of the
totem, believe themselves to be of one blood, and strictly refuse
to sanction the marriage or cohabitation of members of the
group with each other. This prohibition to marry within the
group is now generally called by the name of exogamy. Thus
totemism has commonly been treated as a primitive system
both of religion and of society. As a system of religion it
embraces the mystic union of the savage with his totem ; as a
system of society it comprises the relations in which men and
women of the same totem stand to each other and to the
members of other totemic groups. And corresponding to these
two sides of the system are two rough and ready tests or
canons of totemism : first, the rule that a man may not kill or
eat his totem animal or plant ; and second, the rule that he may
not marry or cohabit with a woman of the same totem.
Whether the two sides — the religious and social — have always
co-existed or are essentially independent, is a question which
has been variously answered. Some writers — for example,
Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Herbert Spencer — have held that
totemism began as a system of society only, and that the
superstitious regard for the totem developed later, through
a simple process of misunderstanding. Others, including J. F.
McLennan and Robertson Smith, were of opinion that the
religious reverence for the totem is original, and must, at least,
have preceded the introduction of exogamy."
The system of totems prevailing in Central Australia is so
far parallel to that known in India that it includes, not only
animals and plants, but also a number of objects, animate and
inanimate. Thus while the Australians have " totems of the
wind, the sun, the evening star, fire, water, cloud, and so on,"
• Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes of Central Australia, 1899.
io6 PEOPLE OF INDIA
we find among our Dravidians in India the month of June,
Wednesday in every week, the moon, the rainbow, and the
constellation Pleiades figuring as totems among a number of
names which include pretty well the entire flora and fauna of
the country where the tribe is settled. But while among the
Australians the religious aspect of the totem is relatively more
prominent than the social, in India the position is reversed ; the
social side of the system is very much alive while the religious
side has fallen into disuse. It is the religious side on which Sir
J. G. Frazer lays stress, and he explains totemism as " primarily
an organized and co-operative system of magic designed to
secure for the members of the community, on the one hand, a
plentiful supply of all the commodities of which they stand in
need, and, on the other hand, immunity from all the perils and
dangers to which man is exposed in his struggle with nature."
In other words, totemism is a primitive Commissariat and
General Providence Department which at a later stage took
over the business of regulating marriage. The evidence for
this proposition is derived from the magical ceremonies called
intichiuma in which the members of each totem solemnly mimic
the animals and plants after which they are called, and eat a small
portion of them with the object of ensuring a plentiful supply of
the species. Thus the men of the totem called after the Witchetty
grub, a succulent caterpillar of some kind which is esteemed a
great luxury, paint their bodies in imitation of the grub, crawl
through a structure of boughs supposed to represent its
chrysalis, chant a song inviting the insect to go and lay eggs,
and butt each other in the stomach with the remark " You have
eaten much food." The Emu men dress themselves up to
resemble Emus and imitate the movements and aimless gazing
about of the birds ; the Kangaroo men and the men of the
Nakea flower totem go through similar mummeries. An
admirable collection of the totemistic symbols of the Arunta,
together with photographs of the ritual observed in the
invocation of the totems themselves, may be seen in the Ethno-
logical department of the Museum at Melbourne.
Now in the first place the doubt occurs to one whether
small and moribund tribes, such as the Australians, can fairly
be taken to be typical of primitive man. If they could, then
man would be primitive still, and we should none of us have
got to the point of vexing our souls about the origin of
anything. The one distinctive feature of the Australian natives
is their incapacity for any sort of progressive evolution.
SOCIAL TYPES 107
Surely an atrophied or, it may be, degenerative man of that
type is not the sort of ancestor we want to discover; for it is
difficult to see what we can learn from him. In Europe, on the
other hand, primitive man, so far as we can judge from the
traces he has left behind, seems to have been an animal of an
entirely different type. He had, indeed, his weaknesses — does
not his vatessacer, Mr. Andrew Lang, impute to him a diet of
oysters and foes — but he fought a good fight with his environ-
ment and, as events show, he came out a winner. It seems
then that the quest of primitive man ready made and only
waiting to be observed and analyzed may be nothing better
than a tempting short cut leading to delusion, and that what
we must look to is not so much primitive man as primitive
usage regarded in its bearing on evolution.
It is from this point of view that I wish to put in a plea for
the consideration of the Indian data. Primitive usages may, I
would suggest, be divided, as Mr. Bagehot divided political
institutions, into the effective and the ineffective, in other words,
into those which affect evolution and those which do not. In
the case of totemism we can distinguish these two pretty
clearly. The magical ritual of the Arunta tribe obviously
belongs to the ineffective class. No one outside the Arunta
— and even among them one would think there must be augurs —
supposes that by performing the most elaborate parody of the
demeanour of certain animals a man can really cause them to
increase and multiply. In India, on the other hand, our
totemistic people have got rid of all such antics, if, indeed,
they ever practised them, and retain only the unquestionably
effective factor in the system, the rule that a man may not
marry a woman of his own totem. They
have, it is true, also the rule that people may "^ El^glmy.""^
not eat, injure or make use of their totems,
but this prohibition is relatively weak, and in some cases the
totems are articles such as rice and salt, which the members of
the totem-kin could hardly do without.
Given then a state of things such as this, that tribes which
are in no way moribund or degenerate, but on the contrary
extremely full of life, retain the effective part of an archaic
usage along with the traces of its ineffective parts, may we
not reasonably conclude that this effective part, which has
stood the wear and tear of ages and contributed to the
evolution of the tribe, furnishes the clue to the real origin of
the usage itself? Assume this to be so and totemism at once
io8 PEOPLE OF INDIA
wheels into line and takes the place, which it appears clearly to
occupy in India, of a form of- exogamy. The particular form
presents no great difficulty. Primitive men are like children :
they are constantly saying to themselves " Let's pretend," and a
favourite- and wide-spread form of the game is to pretend to be
animals. Only they play it in earnest, and very grim earnest
it sometimes is, as anyone will discover who has to administer
a district where people believe that men can transform them-
selves into animals at will, or can be so transformed by the
agency of witchcraft.
It will be asked, what then is the origin of exogamy ?
Here again I. think the Indian evidence suggests an answer.
Just as the special phenomenon of totemism may be explained
by reference to the general law of exogamy, so exogamy itself
may be traced to the still more general law of natural selection.
Nor need we strain the law. We know that there is a
tendency in individuals or groups of individuals to vary their
habits ; and that useful variations tend to be preserved and
ultimately transmitted. Now suppose that in a primitive
community, such as the Naga khel or the Kandh gochi, the men
happened to vary in the direction of taking their wives from
some other community and that this infusion of fresh blood
proved advantageous to the group. The original instinct
would then be stimulated by heredity, and the element of
sexual selection would, in course of time, come into play. For
an exogamous group would have a larger choice of women
than an endogamous one, and would thus get finer women, who
again, in the course of the primitive struggle for wives, would
be appropriated by the strongest and most warlike men. The
exogamous groups so strengthened would tend, as time went
on, to " eat up," in the expressive Zulu phrase, their endogamous
neighbours, or at any rate to deprive them of the pick of their
marriageable girls ; and the custom of exogamy would spread,
partly by imitation, and partly by the extinction of the groups
which did not practise it.
The fact that we cannot say how people came to vary in
this particular fashion is not necessarily fatal to the hypothesis
put forward. In the case of animals other than man we do not
call in question the doctrine of natural selection because we
cannot trace the precise cause which gave rise to some
beneficial variation. It is enough that variations do occur, and
that the beneficial ones tend to be transmitted. If, however, an
attempt must be made to pierce the veil which shuts off from
SOCIAL TYPES 109
our view the ages of pre-historic evolution, it does not seem
unreasonable to suppose that here and there some half-
accidental circumstance, such as the transmission of a physical
defect or an hereditary disease, may have given primitive man
a sort of warning, and thus have induced the particular kind of
variation which his circumstances required. Conquest again
may have produced the same effect by bringing about a beneficial
mixture of stocks, though it is a little difficult to see, as Mr.
Lang pointed out long ago, why the possession of foreign
women should have disinclined people to marry the women of
their own group. At the same time it is conceivable that the
impulse may have been set going by some tribe from which all
its marriageable women had been raided and which was thus
driven by necessity to start raiding on its own account.
I have elsewhere given instances, drawn from the Kandhs and
Nagas, which lend themselves to this view ; but I am not sure
that we need travel beyond the tendency to accidental variation
which appears in all living organisms and may be assumed to
have shaped the development of primitive man.
In a country where the accident of birth determines
irrevocably the whole course of a man's social and domestic
relations, and he must throughout life eat, drink, dress, marry,
and give in marriage in accordance with the usages of the
community into which he was born, one is tempted at first
sight to assume that the one thing that he may be expected to
know with certainty, and to disclose without much reluctance,
is the name of the caste, tribe, or race to which he belongs. As
a matter of fact no column in the Census schedule displays a
more bewildering variety of entries, or gives so much trouble
to the enumerating and testing staff and to the central offices
which compile the results. If the person enumerated gives the
name of a well-known tribe, such as Bhil or Santal, or of a
standard caste like Brahman or Kayasth, all is well. But he
may belong to an obscure caste from the other end of India;
he may give the name of a religious sect, of a sub-caste, of an
exogamous sept or section, of a hypergamous group ; he may
mention some titular designation which sounds finer than the
name of his caste ; he may describe himself
by his occupation or by the province or ^^^^^^^^^^°'' °^
tract of country from which he comes.
These various alternatives, which are far from exhausting the
possibilities of the situation, undergo a series of transforma-
tions at the hands of the more or less illiterate enumerator
no PEOPLE OF INDIA
who writes them down in his own vernacular, and of the
abstractor in the central office who transliterates them into
English. Then begins a laborious and most difficult process
of sorting, referencing, cross-referencing, and corresponding
with local authorities, which ultimately results in the compila-
tion of a table showing the distribution of the inhabitants of
India by Caste, Tribe, Race, or Nationality. The arrangement
of this table is alphabetical and it consists of two parts. The
first is a general list of all the groups returned, with their
distribution by religion ; while the second shows the distribu-
tion by provinces and states of all groups with an aggregate
strength of 10,000. An analysis of ^ the table shows that it
includes 2,378 main castes and tribes and 43 races or
nationalities. With the latter we are not concerned here ;
as to the former, the question at once arises — on what
principle should they be arranged ? An alphabetical system is
useful for reference, and essential for the purely statistical
purposes of a census table. But it does not help us in the
least towards presenting an intelligible picture of the social
grouping of that large proportion of the people of India which
is organized, admittedly or tacitly, on the basis of caste. In
this matter a new departure was taken at the Census of 1901.
The classification followed in 1891 was then described as
"based on considerations partly ethnological, partly historical,
and partly, again, functional. The second predominate, for
instance, in the first caste group, and the last throughout the
middle of the return ; but wherever practicable, as it is in the
latter portion of the scheme, ethnological distinctions have
been maintained. Then, again, it must be mentioned that the
functional grouping is based less on the occupation that
prevails in each case in the present day than on that which
is traditional with it, or which gave rise to its differentiation
from the rest of the community." The main heads of the
scheme embodying the application of these principles are given
at page 188 of the Report on the Census of India for 1891, and
its detailed application is shown in Imperial Table XVII.
Judged by its results this scheme is open to criticism in
several respects. It accords neither with native tradition and
practice, nor with any theory of caste that has ever been
propounded by students of the subject. In different parts
it proceeds on different principles, with the result that on the
one hand it separates groups which are really allied, and on the
other includes in the same category groups of widely different
SOCIAL TYPES m
origin and status. It is in fact a patch-woric classification in
which occupation predominates, varied here and there by
considerations of caste, history, tradition, ethnical affinity, and
geographical position. Illustrations of these defects might be
multiplied almost indefinitely, but it is sufficient to mention
that the Dravidian Khandaits of Orissa are classed with
Rajputs and Babhans, Jats, Marathas, and Nayars ; that
Brahman priests, Mirasi musicians, and Bahurupia buffoons
fall within the same general category ; that the Mongoloid
Koch, Kachari, Tharu, and Mech are widely separated ; and
that more than half of the Musalmans, including the converted
aborigines of Eastern Bengal and Assam, are shown as
" Musalman Foreign Races," the rest being merged among
a number of occupational groups purporting to be endogamous.
In organizing the Census of 1901 I suggested to my
colleagues that an attempt should be made to arrange the
various groups that had to be dealt with on some system
which would command general acceptance, at any rate, within
the limits of the province to which it was applied. I did not
expect that the same system would suit all
provinces or even all divisions of the same Method adopted in
'^ . , T , ^ , Census of 1001.
province ; and 1 was quite prepared to find
the preparation of a combined table for the whole of India a
task of insuperable difficulty. But I was confident that the
provincial results would throw light upon a variety of social
movements which at present escape notice ; that they would
add greatly to the interest of the reports ; and that they would
provide a sound statistical ground-work for the ethnographic
survey of India which is now in progress.
The principle suggested as a basis was that of classification
by social precedence as recognized by native public opinion
at the present day, and manifesting itself in the facts that
particular castes are supposed to be the modern representa-
tives of one or other of the castes of the theoretical Hindu
system ; that Brahmans will take water from certain castes ;
that Brahmans of high standing will serve particular castes ;
that certain castes though not served by the best Brahmans,
have nevertheless got Brahmans of their own, whose rank
varies according to circumstances ; that certain castes are not
served by Brahmans at all, but have priests of their own ; that
the status of certain castes has been raised by their taking to
infant-marriage or abandoning the remarriage of widows ; that
the status of some castes has been lowered by their living in a
112 • PEOPLE OF INDIA
particular locality ; that the status of others has been modified
by their pursuing some occupation in a special or peculiar
way ; that some can claim the services of the village barber,
the village palanquin-bearer, the village midwife, etc., while
others cannot ; that some castes may not enter the courtyards
of certain temples ; that some castes are subject to special
taboos, such as that they must not use the village well, or
may draw water only with their own vessels, that they must
live outside the village or in a separate quarter, that they
must leave the road on the approach of a high-caste man, or
must call out to give warning of their approach. In the case of
the Animistic tribes it was mentioned that the prevalence of
totemism and the degree of adoption of Hindu usage would
serve as ready tests. All Superintendents, except three who
were either defeated by the complexity of the facts or were
afraid of hurting people's feelings, readily grasped the main
idea of the scheme, and their patient industry, supplemented
by the intelligent assistance readily given by the highest
native authorities, has added very greatly to our knowledge
of an obscure and intricate subject.
The best evidence of the general success of the experiment,
and incidentally of the remarkable vitality of caste at the present
day, is to be found in the great number of petitions and memorials
to which it gave rise, the bulk of which were submitted in
English and emanated from the educated classes who are
sometimes alleged to be anxious to free themselves from the
trammels of the caste system. If the principle on which the
classification was based had not appealed to the usages and
traditions of the great mass of Hindus, it is inconceivable that
so many people should have taken much trouble and incurred
substantial expenditure with the object of securing its applica-
tion in a particular way. Of these memorials the most elabo-
rate was that received from the Khatris of the Punjab and the
United Provinces who felt themselves aggrieved by the Superin-
tendent of Census in the latter Province having provisionally
classified them as Vaisyas, whereas in the specimen table
circulated by me they had been placed in the same group as
the Rajputs. A meeting of protest was held at Bareilly, and a
great array of authorities was marshalled to prove that the
Khatris are lineally descended from the Kshatriyas of Hindu
mythology, much as if the modern Greeks were to claim direct
descent from Achilles and were to cite the Catalogue of the
Ships in the second book of the Iliad in support of their
SOCIAL TYPES 113
pretensions. In passing orders on their memorial I pointed out
that they were mistaken in supposing that
this was the first census in which any "^working*^
attempt had been made to classify castes on
a definite principle, or that the selection of social precedence
as a basis was an entirely new departure. As a matter of fact
the scheme of classification adopted in 1891 purported to
arrange the groups more or . less in accordance with the
position generally assigned to each in the social scale, as has
been suggested by Sir Denzil Ibbetson in his Report on the
Punjab Census of 1881. The result, in the case of the Khatris,
was to include them as number 13 in " Group XV — Traders"
immediately after the Aroras of the Punjab, ten places lower
than the Agarwals, and several places below the Kandus and
Kasarwanis of the United Provinces and the Subarnabaniks of
Bengal. The Rajputs, on the other hand, ranked first in the
entire scheme as number 1 of " Group I — Military and Domi-
nant." In the Bengal Census Report of 1891 the Rajputs were
placed among " the patrician class," while the Khatris were
grouped with the Baniyas between the Baidyas and Kayasthas
in a group described as " the Vaisyas Proper or Plebeian Middle
Class." It was obviously improbable that the Khatris desired
this classification to be maintained, and the evidence laid before
me not only brought out the conspicuous part played by them
in the authentic history of the Punjab in modern times, but
seemed to make it clear that in British India at any rate they
are generally believed to be the modern representatives of the
Kshatriyas of Hindu tradition. For census purposes the fact
that most people do hold this belief was sufficient in itself, and
it would have been irrelevant to enquire into the grounds upon
which the opinion was based. Superintendents of census were
accordingly instructed to include the Khatris under the heading
Kshatriya in their classification of castes. The decision gave
general satisfaction and served to illustrate the practical
working of the principle that the sole test of social precedence
prescribed was Indian public opinion, and that this test was to
be applied with due consideration for the susceptibilities of the
persons concerned. The other memorials were disposed of by
the Provincial Superintendents on similar lines.
As no stereotyped scheme of classification was drawn up,
but every Province was left to adopt its own system in consul-
tation with its own experts and representative men, it was
clearly impossible to draw up any general scheme for the
R, PI 8
114 PEOPLE OF INDIA
whole of India. One might as well have tried to construct a
table of social precedence for Europe, which should bring
together on the same list Spanish grandees, Swiss hotel-
keepers, Turkish Pashas, and Stock Exchange millionaires,
and should indicate the precise degree of relative distinction
attaching to each. The problem, in fact, is essentially a local
one. Every man has honour in his own country, and India is
no more one country than Europe — indeed very much less.
The Provincial schemes of classification are summarized in
the Census Report of India, 1901, vol. i, p. 560 et seq*
Although they cannot be reduced to common terms, they
exhibit points of resemblance and difference which deserve
some further examination. The first thing to observe is the
predominance throughout India of the influence of the tradi-
tional system of four original castes. In every scheme of
grouping the Brahman heads the list. Then come the castes
whom popular opinion accepts as the modern representatives
of the Kshatriyas, and these are followed by
s genera resu ts. ^.j^^ mercantile groups, supposed to be akin
to the Vaisyas. When we leave the higher circles of the twice-
born, the difficulty of finding a uniform basis of classification
becomes apparent. The ancient designation Sudra finds no
great favour in modern times, and we can point to no group
that is generally recognized as representing it. The term is
used in Bombay, Madras, and Bengal, to denote a considerable
number of castes of moderate respectability, the higher of
whom are considered " clean " Sudras, while the precise status
of the lower is a question which lends itself to endless con-
troversy. At this stage of the grouping a sharp distinction
may be noticed between Upper India and Bombay and Madras.
In Rajputana, the Punjab, the United Provinces, the Central
Provinces, Bengal, and Assam the grade next below twice-born
rank is occupied by a number of castes from whose hands
Brahmans and members of the higher castes will take water
and certain kinds of sweetmeats. Below these again is a rather
indeterminate group from whom water is taken by some of the
higher castes but not by others. Further down, where the test
* [The details of this grouping, which appeared in the first edition of this book, have
not been reproduced. Particularly in Bengal, the publication of this so-called " warrant of
precedence " led to much agitation' and produced a legacy of trouble. It was the signal for an
attempt by certain ambitious castes to assert a claim to a rank higher than they deserved, and
these claims were supported by various novel expedients. Hence, at the last census the
project was abandoned (Census Reports, Bengal, 191 1, vol. i., p. 440, et seq. : Cochin, 191 1,
vol. i., p. 67 : Travancore, 1911, vol. i., p. 233 t Assam, 1911, vol. i., p. 116).]
SOCIAL TYPES iiS
of water no longer applies, the status of a caste depends on the
nature of its occupation and its habits in respect of diet. There
are castes whose touch defiles the twice-born, but who refrain
from the crowning enormity of eating beef; while below these
again, in the social system of Upper India, are people like
Chamars and Doms who eat beef and various sorts of miscel-
laneous vermin. In Western and Southern India the idea that
the social status of a caste depends on whether Brahmans will
take water and sweetmeats from its members is unknown, for
the higher castes will, as a rule, take water only from persons
of their own caste and sub-caste. In Madras especially the
idea of ceremonial pollution by the proximity of a member of
an unclean caste has been developed with much elaboration.
Thus the table of social precedence attached to the Cochin
report * shows that while a Nayar can pollute a man of a higher
caste only by touching him, people of the Kammalan group,
including masons, blacksmiths, carpenters, and workers in
leather, pollute at a distance of twenty-four feet, toddy-drawers
(Iluvan or Tiyan) at thirty-six feet, Pulayan or Cheruman culti-
vators at forty-eight feet, while in the case of the Paraiyan
(Pariahs) who eat beef, the range of pollution is stated to be no
less than sixty-four feet. Where these fantastic notions prevail
and the authority of the Brahman is unquestioned, it follows as
a necessary consequence that the unhappy people who diffuse
an atmosphere of impurity wherever they go are forbidden to
enter the high caste quarter of the village, and are compelled
either to leave the road when they see a Brahman coming or to
announce their own approach by a special cry like the lepers
of Europe in the Middle Ages. Such is the logic of intolerance
in parts of Southern India.
The subject of classification is examined fully in some of the
Provincial Census Reports, to which the reader is referred for
further particulars. No attempt was made to grade every
caste. Large classes were formed, and the various groups
included in these were arranged in alphabetical order, so as to
escape the necessity of settling the more delicate questions of
precedence. As an illustration of the method of procedure I
may refer to the table of precedence for Bengal Proper, which
was compiled by me some years ago and has been adopted by
Mr. Gait for the purpose of the Bengal Census Report t after
* [Census Report, Cochin, 1901, vol. i., p. 181, ei sei.]
t [1901, vol. i., p. 369, et Jf?.]
ii6 PEOPLE OF INDIA
careful examination by local committees of Indian gentlemen
appointed for the purpose.
The entire Hindu popiulation of this tract, numbering twenty
millions, has been divided into seven classes. The first class
is reserved for the Brahmans, of whom there are more than a
million, forming six per cent, of the Hindus of Bengal. As
every one knows, there are Brahmans and Brahmans, of status
varying from the Rarhi, who claim to have been imported by
Adisura from Kanauj, to the Barna Brahmans who serve the
lower castes and from whose hands pure Brahmans will not take
water. No attempt has been made to deal with these multi-
farious distinctions in the table. It would be a thankless task
to try to determine the precise degree of social merit or demerit
that attaches to the Pirali Brahmans, who
Soeiai precedence of ^j.g supposed to have been forced, some four
Hindus m Bengal. '^'^ '
centuries ago, to smell or, as some say, to
eat the beefsteaks that had been 'cooked for the renegade
Brahman Pir AH, the dewan of the Muhammadan ruler of
Jessore ; to the Vyasokta Brahmans who serve the Chasi
Kaibartta caste and rank so low that even their own clients will
not touch food in their houses ; to the Agradani who preside at
funeral ceremonies and take the offerings of the dead ; to the
Acharji fortune-teller, palmist, and maker of horoscopes ; and
to the Bhat Brahman, a tawdry parody of the bard and genea-
logist of heroic times, whose rapacity and shamelessness are
proverbial.
Next in order, at the top of the second class, come the
Rajputs, who disown any connexion with Bengal, and base
their claims to precedence on their supposed descent from the
pure Rajputs of the distant Indo-Aryan tract. Their number
(113,405) must include a large number of families belonging to
local castes who acquired land and assumed the title of Rajput
on the strength of their territorial position. Then follow the
Baidyas, by tradition physicians, and the writer caste of
Kayasth. The former pose as the modern representatives of
the Ambastha of Manu and assert their superiority to the
Kayasthas on the ground that the latter have been pronounced
by the High Court of Calcutta to be Sudras, a Kayasth judge
concurring, and that their funeral usages confirm this finding ;
that the Sanskrit College, when first opened, admitted only
Brahmans and Baidyas as students ; that the Kayasths were
originally the domestic servants of the two higher castes, and
when poor take service still; and that native social usage
SOCIAL TYPES 117
concedes higher rank to the Baidyas at certain ceremonies to
which members of the respectable castes are invited. The
Kayasths, on the other hand, claim to be Kshatriyas, who toolc
to clerical work; deny the identity of the Baidyas with the
Ambasthas ; and describe them as a local caste, unknown in the
great centres of Hinduism, who were Sudras till about a century
ago, when they took to wearing the sacred thread, and bribed
the Brahmans to acquiesce in their pretensions. The alpha-
betical arrangement observed in the table leaves the question
an open one.
The third class, numbering three millions, comprises the
functional castes originally known as Navasakha, the nine
"branches" or "arrows," and other clean Sudras, from whose
hands the higher castes take water, and who are served by
high-class Brahmans. Confectioners, perfume vendors, betel
growers, pressers and sellers of oil, gardeners, potters, and
barbers figure in this group, the constitution of which appears
to have been largely determined by consideration of practical
convenience. The preparation of a Hindu meal is a very elabo-
rate performance, involving lengthy ablutions and a variety ot
ritualistic observances which cannot be performed on a journey,
and it is essential to the comfort of the orthodox traveller that
he should be able to procure sweetmeats of various kinds with-
out being troubled by misgivings as to the ceremonial cleanli-
ness of the people from whom he buys them. In matters of
food and drink caste rules are wisely elastic. It has, I believe,
been held that neither ice nor soda-water count as water for
the purpose of conveying pollution ; there are special exemp-
tions in favour of biscuits and patent medicines, for the last of
which the Bengali has an insatiable appetite ; and in an outlying
district where the only palanquin-bearers available were
Dravidian Bhuiyas, I have known them to be given brevet rank
as a water-giving {jaldcharaniyd) caste in order that the twice-
born traveller might be able to get a drink without quitting his
palanquin.
The fourth class includes only two castes — the Chasi Kaibartta
and the Goala — from whom water is taken by the high castes, but
whose Brahmans are held to be degraded. About the former
group 1 wrote in 1891 : " It seems likely, as time goes on, that
this sub-caste will rise in social estimation, and will altogether
sink the Kaibartta, so that eventually it is possible that they
may succeed in securing a place with the Navasakha." The
forecast has to this extent been fulfilled that at the recent Census
ii8 PEOPLE OF INDIA
the Chasi Kaibartta called themselves Mahishya, the name of the
offspring of a legendary cross between Kshatriyas and Vaisya,
and posed as a separate caste. In Nadia, according to Mr.
Gait, " the new idea gained such ground that many Chasi
Kaibarttas in dorriestic service under other castes threw up their
work, saying it was beneath their dignity. .Finding, however,
that no other means of livelihood were available they were soon
fain to return and beg their employers' forgiveness." * The
higher castes, moreover, expressed their disapproval of a
movement which upset their domestic arrangements by a
concerted refusal to take water from the hands of a Chasi.
Notwithstanding these discouragements I have little doubt
that by the next Census the Mahishya will have succeeded in
establishing their claim.f Their case is of interest for the hght
that it throws on the evolution of a caste.
The fifth class contains a rather miscellaneous assortment
of castes, including the Baishtam, the Sunri, and the Sunbarna-
banik, from whom the higher castes do not usually take water.
Their precedence is also defined by the fact that although the
village barber will shave them he will not cut their toe-nails nor
will he take part in their marriage ceremonies. Here again
quaint problems of status arise. The Baishtams are a group
formed by the conversion to Vaishnavism of members of many
different castes, who have embraced the tenets of different
Vaishnava sects. In theory inter-marriage between these sects
is prohibited, but if a man of one sect wishes to marry a woman
of another, he has only to convert her by a simple ritual to
his own sect and the obstacles to their union are removed.
The social standing of the caste is necessarily low, as it is
recruited from among all classes of society, and large numbers
of prostitutes and people who have got into trouble in con-
sequence of sexual irregularities are found among its ranks.
* ICemus Report, Bengal, 1901, vol. i., p. 380 note^
t [" The caseiof these castes who discard the name borne by their ancestors and arrogate a
new designation is different. In their case the new name is recognised by the census author-
ities, if it is generally applied to them by the Hindu community at large and is not used
by any other castes. In this way the Chandals have been allowed to be returned as Nama-
.Sudras, that term being recognised by the Hindus generally and applying exclusively to them.
Similarly, the Chasi Kaibarttas are allowed to return themselves as Mahishya, but though
that name has been adopted by the Chasi Kaibarttas in recent times, it has won general
recognition and is exclusively applied to the Chasi Kaibarttas. Ten years ago this innovation
was resented by conservative Hindus in some places — in Nadia the higher castes went so
far as to refuse to take water from the Chasi Kaibarttas — but it is now generally tolerated. "
Census Report, Bengal, VjW, vol. i., p. 443, et seql]
SOCIAL TYPES 119
Within the caste, however, many of them retain their old social
distinctions, and a Baishtam of Kayasth origin would not
ordinarily take water from the hands of one whose ancestors
were Chandals. Outsiders also recognize these differences and
take water from Baishtams who are known to have belonged to
one of the clean castes. Where the origin of a Baishtam is
unknown, water which he has touched can only be used for
washing.
The Subarnabaniks are a mercantile caste peculiar to
Bengal Proper, who claim to be the modern representatives of
the ancient Vaisya. In spite of their wealth and influence,
their high-bred appearance, and the notorious beauty of the
women of the caste, their claim to this distinguished ancestry
has failed to obtain general recognition. They are excluded
from the ranks of the Navasakha, or nine clean Sudra castes,
and none but Vaidik Brahmans will take water from their
hands. To account for the comparatively low status assigned
to them, the Subarnabaniks cite a variety of traditions, some
of which, however unsupported by historical evidence, deserve
to be briefly mentioned here as illustrations of the kind of
stories which tend to grow up wherever the business talents
and practical ability of a particular community have advanced
it in the eyes of the world conspicuously beyond its rank in
the theoretical order of castes. These people, for example,
say that their ancestors came to Bengal from Oudh during the
reign of Adisura, who was struck by their financial ability and
conferred on them the title of Subarnabanik, or trader in gold,
as a mark of his favour. They then wore the Brahmanical
thread, studied the Vedas and were generally recognized as
Vaisyas of high rank. The stories of their degradation all
centre round the name of Ballal Sen, who was Raja of Eastern
Bengal in 1070 a.d. His intrigue with a beautiful Patni girl is
said to have been ridiculed on the stage by some young
Subarnabaniks, while the entire body refused to be present
at the penance whereby the king affected to purify himself
from the sin of intercourse with a maiden of low caste.
Another cause of offence is said to have been the refusal of a
leading Subarnabanik to lend Ballal large sums of money to
carry on war with Manipur. Authorities differ concerning the
method by which the Raja obtained his revenge. Some say
that in the course of the penance already referred to, a number
of small golden calves had been distributed to the attendant
Brahmans. One of these Brahmans was suborned by Ballal
120 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Sen to fill the hollow inside of a calf with lac-dye, and to take
the figure to a Subarnabanik for sale. In testing the gold the
Subarnabanik let out the lac-dye, which was at once pronounced
to be blood. Having thus fastened upon the caste the
inexpiable guilt of killing a cow, Ballal Sen publicly declared
them and their Brahmans to be degraded, deprived them of
the right to wear the sacred thread, and threatened with
similar degradation any one who should eat or associate
with them.
In default of independent testimony to the accuracy of this
tradition we can hardly accept it as a narrative of historical
events. It is no doubt conceivable that a despotic monarch
might order the social degradation of a particular class of his
subjects provided that it were not too numerous or too
influential ; and it is generally believed that Ballal Sen did effect
some changes of this kind in the relative status of certain families
of Brahmans. Notwithstanding this, the story of the depression
of an entire caste from a very high to a comparatively low rank
in the social system makes a large demand on our belief, and
inclines one to suspect that it may have been evolved in recent
times to account for the position actually occupied by the caste
being lower than that to which their riches and ability would
entitle them to lay claim. From this point of view, the conjecture
that the Subarnabaniks are Hindustani Baniyas, who lost
status by residing in Bengal and marrying Bengali women,
seems to deserve some consideration.
The sixth class includes a long list of castes, numbering
nearly eight millions, who abstain from eating beef, pork, and
fowls, but from whom the higher castes will not take water.
They are served by degraded Brahmans ; the regular barbers
refuse to shave them ; and some of them have special barbers
of their own. Most of them, however, can get their clothes
washed by the village washerman. The typical members of
the group, according to the census of 191 1, are the Bagdi,
(1,041,892), Dravidian cultivators and labourers, the Jaliya or
fishing Kaibartta (375,936), the Namasudraor Chandal (2,087,162),
the Pod (536,591), fishermen and cultivators, and the Rajbansi-
Koch (2,049,454), nearly all of whom are small cultivators.
The seventh class represents the lowest grade of the
Bengal system, castes who eat all manner of unclean food,
whose touch pollutes, whom no Brahman, however degraded,
will serve, and for whom neither barber nor washerman will
work. It comprises the scavenging Doms and Haris, the
SOCIAL TYPES 121
leather-working Chamars and Mochis, and the Bauris who eat
rats and revere the dog as their totem because, as they told
Colonel Dalton, it is the right thing to have a sacred animal of
some kind, and dogs are useful while alive and not very nice
to eat when dead.*
Islam, whether regarded as a religious system or as a
theory of things, is in every respect the antithesis of Hinduism.
Its ideal is strenuous action rather than hypnotic contemplation ;
it allots to man a single life and bids him live it and make the
best of it ; its practical spirit knows nothing of a series of lives,
of transmigration, of karma, oi the weariness of existence which
weighs upon the Indian mind. For the dream of absorption
into an impersonal Weltgeist it substitutes a very personal
Paradise made up of joys such as all „ . ,
Orientals understand. On its social side the among Muham-
religion of Muhammad is equally opposed madans.
to the Hindu scheme of a hierarchy of castes, an elaborate
stratification of society based upon subtle distinctions of food,
drink, dress, marriage, and ceremonial usage. In the sight of
God and of His Prophet all followers of Islam are equal. In
India, however, caste is in the air ; its contagion has spread
even to the Muhammadans ; and we find its evolution proceed-
ing on characteristically Hindu lines. In both communities
foreign descent forms the highest claim to social distinction ;
in both, promotion cometh from the West. As the twice-born
Aryan is to the mass of Hindus, so is the Muhammadan of
alleged Arab, Persian, Afghan or Moghal origin to the rank and
file of his co-religionists. And just as in the traditional Hindu
system men of the higher groups could marry women of the
lower while the converse process was vigorously condemned,
so within the higher ranks of the Muhammadans a Saiyad will
marry a Shekh's daughter but will not give his daughter in
return, and inter-marriage between the upper circle of soi-disant
foreigners and the main body of Indian Muhammadans is
generally reprobated, except in parts of the country where the
aristocratic element is small and must arrange its marriages as
best it can. Even there, however, it is only under the stress of
great poverty that a member of the Ashrdf or " noble " class will
give his daughter to one ofthe Ajldf or "low people," as converts
of indigenous origin are called in Bengal. Of course, the limits
of the various groups are not defined as sharply as they are with
the Hindus. The well-known proverb, which occurs in various
* [Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, 1872, p. 327.]
122 PEOPLE OF INDIA
forms in different parts of Northern India — " Last year I was a
Jolaha ; now I am a Shekh ; next year if prices rise, I shall
become a Saiyad "—marks the difference, though analogous
changes of status are not unknown among Hindus, and, as Mr.
Gait observes, " promotion is not so rapid in reality as it is in
the proverb." But speaking generally, it may be said that the
social cadre of the higher ranks of Muhammadans is based on
hypergamy with a tendency in the direction of endogamy,
while the lower functional groups are strictly endogamous,
and are organized on the model of regular castes with councils
and officers who enforce the observance of caste rules by the
time-honoured sanction of boycotting.
According to Mr. Gait the Bengal Muhammadans
"recognize two main social divisions: (i) Ashraf or Sharif
and (2) Ajlaf, which in Bengali has been corrupted to Atrap.
The first, which means ' noble ' or ' persons of high extraction,'
includes all undoubted descendants of foreigners and converts
from the higher castes of Hindus.* All other Muhammadans,
including the functional groups to be presently mentioned,
and all converts of lower rank are collectively known by
the contemptuous term Ajlaf, ' wretches ' or ' mean people ' ;
they are also called Kamlna or Itar, ' base ' or ' Razll,' a
corruption of Rizal, 'worthless.' This category includes the
various classes of converts who are known as Nao Muslim
in Bihar and Nasya in North Bengal, but who in East Bengal,
where their numbers are greatest, have usually succeeded
in establishing their claim to be called Shekh. It also
includes various functional groups such as that of the Jolaha
or weaver, Dhunia or cotton-carder, Kulu or oil-presser,
Kunjra or vegetable-seller, Hajjam or barber, Darzi or tailor,
and the like. Of these divisions, the Ashraf takes ho count.
To him all alike are Ajlaf This distinction, which is primarily
one between the Muhammadans of foreign birth and those
of local origin, corresponds very closely to the Hindu
division of the community into Dwijas or castes of twice-born
rank, comprising the various classes of the Aryan invaders,
and the Sudras or aborigines whom they subdued. Like the
higher Hindu castes, the Ashraf consider it degrading to
accept menial service or to handle the plough. The traditional
occupation of the Saiyads is the priesthood, while the
Moghals and Pathans correspond to the Kshatriyas of the
Hindu regime.
* In some places many of the Moghals and Pathans are regarded as Ajlaf.
SOCIAL TYPES 123
" In some places a third class, called Arzal or ' lowest of all,'
is added. It consists of the very lowest castes, such as the
Halalkhor, Lalbegi, Abdal, and Bediya, with whom no other
Muhammadan would associate, and who are forbidden to enter
the mosque or to use the public burial ground." *
I have described the Bengal scheme of social precedence at
some length, because of the curious beliefs and traditions
which it embodies and by reason of the testimony which it
bears to the remarkable stability of the caste instinct in spite
of the many modern influences which seem at first sight to
be sapping its foundations. The scheme deals, moreover,
with conditions with which I am to some extent familiar, and
it represents an advanced stage of a process which appears
to me to be going on with varying degrees of rapidity in all
parts of India where Hindu sentiment and tradition are the
dominant factors of social development. The extension of
railways which indirectly diffuses Brahmanical influence and
at the same time weakens trivial caste restrictions ; the
tendency to revive the authority of the Hindu scriptures and
to find in them the solution of modern problems ; the advance
of vernacular education which increases the demands for
popular versions of, and extracts from, these writings, and the
spread of English education which encourages sceptical
tendencies ; — these are among the causes which, in my opinion,
are tending on the one hand to bring about among the
population regarded as a whole a more rigid observance of
the essential incidents of caste, especially of those connected
with marriage, and on the other to introduce greater laxity
in respect of the minor injunctions which are concerned with
food and drink.
On the outskirts of the Empire there are two regions where
Hindu standards of social precedence and Hindu notions t)f
caste are neither recognized nor known. In Baluchistan, until
less than a generation ago, Hindus were
,,,, , i-11 c -1 Case of Baluchistan-
tolerated only as a useful class 01 menials
who carried on the petty trade which the fighting races
deemed below their dignity. They adopted the device, not
unknown in mediaeval Europe, of putting themselves under
the protection of their more powerful neighbours, and Mr.
Hughes-Buller tells us that even now a Hindu when asked
to what caste he belongs " will often describe himself by the
name of the tribal group to whom he holds himself attached.
* \_Census Report, Bengal, 1901, vol. i., p. 439.]
124 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Their position generally was extremely degraded, and may
best be gauged by the fact that among Baloch, Brahui, and
Afghans there was an unwritten rule that in the course of
raids and counter raids women, children aqd Hindus were
to be spared." * Among the non-Hindu people of Baluchistan
the question of social precedence is intricate and obscure and
its details must be studied in Mr. Hughes-Buller's excellent
report. Of the three chief races the Afghans rank highest
in virtue of their former sovereignty ; then comes the Baloch
who also once bore rule, and last the Brahui who were in
power at the time of the British occupation. The relative
position of the two latter tribes is indicated by various
proverbs, by the attempts of the Brahui to trace their descent
to the Baloch, and by the fact that " no self-respecting Baloch
will give his daughter to a Brahui." The test of marriage,
however, appears not to apply , to the Afghan, who regards
the question as a matter of business and will sell his daughter
to any man who can pay her price. Below these races come
the Jats, a term which seems to be loosely used to denote
all sorts of menial classes, including professional musicians
(Langahs), blacksmiths (Loris), and leather-workers (Mochis).
But even here there is no hard and fast prohibition of inter-
marriage, and both Baloch and Brahui will take wives from
among the Jats. Within the circle of each tribe a condition
of theoretical equality appears to prevail, tempered by personal
considerations arising from capacity to lead, religious sanctity,
age and kinship with a ruling family.
In Burma caste is so little known that the Burmese language
possesses no word for it, while one of the difficulties of con-
ducting the Census of the numerous Indian immigrants is the
impossibility of making the average Burman enumerator under-
stand the meaning of the Indian term zat or jdt Differences of
religion he can grasp in a vague sort of way, he has a notion
of what is meant by race, but caste remains to him an insoluble
mystery — a thing with which his democratic spirit, regardless
of social distinctions, has no sympathy whatever. Mr. Lowis
assures us that there are not and never have been any true
castes in Burma, though a class of landed proprietors in Minbu
known as the Thugaungs appear to be endogamous, and thirty-
six professional groups with hereditary occupations are said to
have existed among the Chins.t
* \_Census Report, 1901. Part I, p. 134.]
t \_Census Report, 1901, vol. i., p. 109; cf. Report, 191 1, vol. i., p. 240.]
SOCIAL TYPES 125
No attempt can be made here to analyse and explain the
distribution of the 2,300 castes and tribes
which have been enumerated in the Census. Distribution of .
The mere bulk of the undertaking would in
any case ensure its failure ; the mass of detail would be tedious
and bewildering; while the causes which have determined the
settlement and diffusion of particular groups belong more
properly to local history and are, in any case, largely a matter
of conjecture. In order, however, to give some idea of the
facts and to provide a statistical basis for further researches, I
have selected thirty-six of the principal tribes and castes and
have shown their distribution by Provinces and States in the
series of small maps annexed to this volume. The maps are
constructed on the principle of graphic representation recom-
mended by M. Bertillon. The strength of the caste to which a
map relates is depicted in each province by a rectangle, of
which the base indicates the total population of the province,
while the height denotes the proportion which the numbers of
the caste bear to the total population; thus the area of the
rectangle gives the actual strength of the caste. Most of the
names have also been entered in the large map showing the
physical types.
A glance at the maps will show that some castes are diffused
over the whole of India, while others are „
. J . . , . 4. ,. r Diffused groups,
localized in particular provinces or tracts of
country. The typical instance of a widely diffused caste is
furnished by the Brahmans, who number nearly fifteen millions,
and represent a proportion of the total population ranging from
ten per cent, in the United Provinces, Central India, and
Rajputana to three per cent, in Madras, the Central Provinces
and Bengal, and two per cent, in Assam and Chutia Nagpur.
The distribution accords fairly well with the history and
traditions of the caste. They are strongest in their original
centre, numbering nearly five millions in the United Provinces,
and weakest in the outlying tracts, peopled mainly by non-
Aryan races, which their influence has even now only im-
perfectly reached. There can, however, be little doubt that
many of the Brahmans of the more remote tracts have been
manufactured on the spot by the simple process of conferring
the title of Brahman on the tribal priests of the local deities.
The so-called Barna Brahmans who serve the lower castes of
Bengal probably obtained sacerdotal rank in this fashion. That
the priestly caste is not of altogether unmixed descent is
ui '(giz'S6g) qBfunj aqj ui uijoj A9,qj qoiqAV SJiooiq pnos aqi puB
'{\B UI suoi{{iui 33jq; ^|jb3u jaquinu sJSABaM
^qipf aqx •lUE^si JO p^aads aqi uodn mp'BxnTOBiinM
Avojqi As-qi ^Bqj jqSq aq^ joj ^saja^ui jo aan
— pByCiBg puB UEqjBj 'BqBjof — sdBui UEpEuiiUBqnj\[ 33jq; aqx
•luauidopAap jo aSn^s [Bqu^ aq^ jo saoBj; aiuos uiE^aj puE ajBp
juaoaj A{3ApEJBdraoD b ib sa^sBo o;ui pauiaojsuBj; uaaq 3ABq
qaiqM saquj juasajtdsj qDO>i-isuEqfB^ puB '(sqBUBj) sub^Cibjej
'sqiM 'SJB^B|y[ 'spOJ (SJBpUBq3) SBjpnSBUIB^^' 'SBUJEqiB^J
'sjBf 'sjBfnQ 'sqpBSOQ 'siuoQ aqjL -uiaisA^s jbidos npui^ 3qi
apisjno iiy^s 3je puB yfjoSa^EO siq^ uiq^iM
atuoo lEiuEg puB ']\oy[ 'puoQ '{iqg aqx
•saqui A'jpajiiuipE 3je joqtunu aSjE] e sdnojS paziiEoo^ aq; JQ
•Ajiuapuadapui paApAa uaaq X|qEqojd aABq
qaiqAv sajSEo puijsip 'asjnoa jo 'uijoj sdnojS qans aouiAoad
qoBa uj 'sdEUi aqi ui pa^iqiqxa A'paajjaduii si uopnqij^sip
asoqAv sdnojS lEuoipunj pasnjjip AppiM q;oq (qiJL puE 'ipjj
uauqio aqj puB (jEquin^) sjajiod aqi jo piBS aq X!bui auiBS aqj_
•dBUi aqi ui jo junoaoE uajjE^ ajB qoiqM jo jaq^iau '(^^2'^^9)
uEiCiEpj puE (isz'SSg) ^lOQ sauiEU aqj aapun Eipuj jo qinog aqi
ui sjEaddE saauiAOjj pajiuQ aq; jo uopEpdod aq; jo luaa jad
iqSia Suiuijoj puB Eipuj jaddj^ ui suoqjiui ua; A^^JEau Suuaquinu
(eieoq puE Jiqv) dnojS pjo;sBd aSjE^ aqj^ "asaq; apnpui
jou saop dEUi aq; ;nq 'SBjpE]/\[ jo (giS'SS/) BSipB]/\[ puE {f22'9S^)
UBifijiJii[Eq3 aq; q;iM puodsajjoa 'saauiAOJj pa;iu]^ aq; jo
uopB^ndod aq; jo •;uaD aad aA{aM; SuiuiJOj puB suoq^iui uaAap
jaAO Suuaquinu 'Eipuj jaddfi jo (iq3n]/\[ puE aEuiBq3) sja>[JOM
jaq;Ea{ aq; snqj^ -Bipuj jo a{oqM aq; o; uoi;Bpj ui s;dbj
a;a{dui03 aq; ;no Suuq o; jibj sdBui aq; aSEnSuBj jo saauajajjip
o; SuiAVQ -saDuiAoad ;uaaaj}ip ui A{[Eua;Bui sauBA A^qBqojd
uoi;isodiuoo ppBj Jiaq; puE 'uoisnj^tp apiM spjEMo; si ^auapua;
aq; sdnoaS ]Buoi;aunj jaiqo aq; ui os suBUiqBjg aq; q;iM sy
; 9ii3M3q UEui 3SIM 3q) 13^;
J3AU aqi JO pjoj aq; ;v
; JiBj aq «ui-Bq3 3vp iQ
'3[DEjq aq UEUiq^ig sqi jj
•uvif 3iCuvftt mi yfm sytij
'.iviiivy^ vmS 'uvmyvuff vuvjf
— qai;sip uMouj[-{pM aq; uioaj
uAVEjp aq sdEqjad Abui uoisnpuoD jejiuiis y -puBq ;b ajaM
;Eq; siBua;Bm ^ue jo ;no uoisbdoo aq; joj dn uiaq; aj(Bui o;
paSi^qo ajaAV puE ;no unj A^ddns aq; punoj 'ja;jEnb e puE qj^Bj
E iffpnsn 'suEuiqBjg jo jaquinu pa;B;s b paaj o; q;EO qsEj b
ujoMS SuiAEq 'oqM 'seCe-jj jo spuaSa^ snojamnu aq; K(\ pa;sa;;B
VIQNI JO 31d03d . 9^1
SOCIAL TYPES ' 127
the United Provinces (923,042), and in Bengal (1,242,049), seem
to mark the area in which the lower classes of the community
were converted en masse to a faith which seemed to hold out
to them the prospect of a social status unattainable under the
rigid system of caste. The Pathan map denotes a different
order of phenomena, and may be taken to indicate roughly the
degree of diffusion of the main body of the foreign Musalman
element and their descendants. It shows us the sturdy,
pugnacious, enterprising Pathan pushing forward from the
frontier and establishing himself among the feebler folk of
India wherever there was fighting to be done or money to be
made. The Saiyad map on the other hand seems to give some
clue to the distribution of the upper classes of the immigrant
Musalmans.
CHAPTER III
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS
Voliio vivu' per or a viru7n.
Ennius.
In all ages and countries the study of proverbs and popular
sayings has appealed by its human interest
vaXs drflSns; to many sorts of minds. Plato, Aristotle
and Theophrastus are believed to have col-
lected the proverbs of their day, and many of Lucian's wittiest
sayings are pointed from the same armoury. In the later
middle age both Erasmus * and Scaliger made collections
of proverbs, unfortunately only of classical proverbs, and the
former defined a proverb as " Celebre dictum scita quadam
novitate insigne." This earliest definition seems to overlook
some of the essential features of the best proverbs— their
brevity, their bearing on the practical conduct of every-day
life, and their origin in the speech of the people. What makes
a proverb, as M. Dejardin t excellently puts it, " c'est sa vogue
populaire." Erasmus fails to bring out this point and thus does
not distinguish the proverb from the apophthegm, the brilliant
expression of the concentrated thought of the learned, and
from the aphorism which aims at scientific precision and
corresponds, in the domain of ethics, to the axiom of mathe-
matical reasoning. Voltaire illustrates the distinction admirably
when he says of Boileau's poetry that one finds in it some
expressions which have passed into proverbs and others
which deserve to rank as maxims. " Maxims," he goes on to
say, " are elevated, wise and useful ; they are made for the
witty and appeal to cultivated taste. Proverbs on the other
hand are for the vulgar, for the common man, whom," he
observes characteristically, "one meets in all ranks of society."
* Desiderii Erasmi Roierodami ^ Praverbiorum Epitome retractata ab M. lo. Christ,
Messerschmid, Lipsiae, 1758.
t Dictionnaire des Spots oil Proverbes Wallons, Li^ge, 1863.
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS 129
Other writers have dwelt upon other points of the genuine
proverb. The grammarian Donatus insists that it must be
accommodatum rebus temporibus, must fit the facts and the
period : the philologist Festus, looking to the etymology of the
word, lays stress on its quality as ad agendum apta, a guide in
the business of life. A modern writer who is impressed both
by the brevity and by the selfish and heartless tone of many
proverbs describes them as "the algebra of materialism."
The epigram is ingenious and hits off the tendency of the
proverb to get condensed into a paradoxical formula such as
Festina lente, but the reference to materialism seems hardly
appropriate. To describe proverbs as the algebra oi popular
pessimism would in some respects be nearer to the truth.
As might be expected, the most exhaustive and careful
definition, albeit a trifle ponderous, has been made in Germany.
According to Borchart * a proverb is a saying current among
the people which sets forth in thoroughly popular language,
and with studied brevity, a truth acknowledged by all. By the
side of this we may place Rivarol's opinion that proverbs
represent the fruits of popular experience and, as it were, the
common-sense of all ages compressed into a formula. And we
may conclude the series with the admirable phrase commonly
attributed to Lord John Russell, but probably suggested to
him by a variety of sayings of the same type which are current
in many countries, "The wisdom of many and the wit of one."
Of this it may fairly be said that to define a proverb by a
proverb is a triumph of definition.
There are, however, proverbs and proverbs. Some contain
1 truth of general application which holds
-ood for all time and stands its ground in the ^^and^partfcuia^^^
'ace of social change and political or eco-
lomic revolution. Such proverbs are based on universal experi-
ence and embody the common-sense of mankind. Their form,
ndeed, may differ widely, but the underlying idea is everywhere
he same and everywhere has given rise spontaneously to
iome telling phrase. Our own proverb " Coals to Newcastle "
igures in the delicate irony of the Greeks as "Owls to
\thens." Other proverbs again have a more limited range.
They express a truth rooted in experience, but the experience
s that of a particular people or of a particular country, and the
iayings in which it is summed up are coloured by the spirit
• Die Sprichw'drtlichen Redensarten iiit Deutschen Volksmuna nach Sinn und Ursprung
Haiitert ; Leipzig, 1888.
R, PI 9
I30 PEOPLE OF INDIA
of the time when they were coined and of the nation which
produced them. They hold good for their birth-place, but not
for all the world.
It need hardly be said that the proverbs and sayings
relating to caste which are brought together
^''*' of castr""^^ i" Appendix I and are commented on in this
chapter belong for the most part to the
second of the two classes noticed above. In respect both of
their subject-matter and of their form they are local and
particular rather than universal and general. Yet now and
then one finds a truth of universal experience rendered in
terms of caste relations, and the fact is instructive in so far as
it bears witness to the supremacy of the caste sentiment in
India and to the prominent place that it occupies in the daily
life of the people.
No one indeed can fail to be struck by the intensely popular
character of Indian proverbial philosophy and by its freedom
from the note of pedantry which is so conspicuous in Indian
literature. These quaint sayings have dropped fresh from the
lips of the Indian rustic ; they convey a vivid
■^ ""'" alie^.''*''*" impression of the anxieties, the troubles, the
annoyances, and the humours of his daily
life ; and any sympathetic observer who has felt the fascination
of an oriental village would have little difficulty in constructing
from these materials a fairly accurate picture of rural society
in India. The mise en scene is not altogether a cheerful one.
It shows us the average peasant dependent upon the vicissitudes
of the season and the vagaries of the monsoon, and watching
from day to day to see what the year may bring forth. Should
rain fall at the critical moment his wife will get golden earrings,
but one short fortnight of drought may spell calamity when
"God takes all at once." Then the forestalling Baniya
flourishes by selling rotten grain, and the Jat cultivator is
ruined. First die the improvident Musalman weavers
(Jolaha), then the oil-pressers for whose wares there is no
demand ; the carts lie idle, for the bullocks are dead, and the
bride goes to her husband without the accustomed rites. But
be the season good or bad, the pious Hindu's life is ever
overshadowed by the exactions of the
The Brahman. Brahman— "a thing with a string round its
neck " (a profane hit at the sacred thread), a priest by appear-
ance, a butcher at heart, the chief of a trio of tormentors
gibbeted in the rhyming proverb : —
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS 131
Is dunyd men tin kas'ai,
Pisu, khatmal, Brahman bhal.
Which may be rendered —
" Blood-suckers three on earth there be,
The bug, the Brahman and the flea."
Before the Brahman starves the King's larder will be empty ;
cakes must be given to him while the children of the house
may lick the grindstone for a meal ; his stomach is a bottomless
pit ; he eats so immoderately that he dies from wind. He will
beg with a lakh of rupees in his pocket, and a silver begging-
bowl in his hand. In his greed for funeral fees he spies out
corpses like a vulture, and rejoices in the misfortune of his
clients. A village with a Brahffian in it is like a tank full of
crabs ; to have him as a neighbour is worse than leprosy : if
a snake has to be killed the Brahman Should be set to do it, for
no one will miss him. If circumstances compel you to perjure
yourself, why swear on the head of yOur son, when there is
a Brahman handy ? Should he die (as is the popular belief)
the world will be none the poorer. Like the devil in English
proverbial philosophy, the Brahman can cite scripture for his
purpose ; he demands worship himself but does not scruple to
kick his low-caste brethren ; he washes his sacred thread but
does not cleanse his inner man ; and so gfeat is his avarice that
a man of another caste is supposed to pray " O God, let me not
be reborn as a Brahman priest, who is always begging and is
never satisfied." He defrauds even the gods ; Vishnu gets the
barren prayers while the Brahman devours the offerings. So
Pan complains in one of Lucian's dialogues that he is done out
of the good things which men offer at his shrine.
The next most prominent figure in our gallery of popular
portraits is that of the Baniya, money-lender, .
• 1 i J i- "i u J • .. The Baniya.
gram-dealer and monopolist, who dominates
the material world as the Brahman does the spiritual. His
heart, we are told, is no bigger than a coriander seed ; he has
the jaws of an alligator and a stomach of wax ; he is less to be
trusted than a tiger, a scorpion, or a snake; he goes in like
a needle and comes out like a sword; as a neighbour he
is as bad as a boil in the armpit. If a Baniya is on the other
side of a river you should leave your bundle on this side,
for fear he should steal it. When four Baniyas meet they rob
the whole world. If a Baniya is drowning you should not give
him a hand : he is sure to have some base motive for drifting
132 PEOPLE OF INDIA
down stream. He uses light weights and swears that the
scales tip themselves ; he Iteeps his accounts in a character
that no one but God can read ; if you borrow from him, your
debt mounts up like a refuse heap or gallops like a horse ; if
he talks to a customer he " draws a line " and debits the con-
versation; when his own credit is shaky he writes up his
transactions on the wall so that they can easily be rubbed out.
He is so stingy that the dogs starve at his feast, and he scolds
his wife if she spends a farthing on betel-nut. A Jain Baniya
drinks dirty water and shrinks from killing ants and flies, but
will not stick at murder in pursuit of gain. As a druggist the
Baniya is in league with' the doctor; he buys weeds at a
nominal price and sells them very dear. Finally, he is always
a shocking coward : eighty-four Khatris will run away from
four thieves.
Nor does the clerical caste fare better at the hands of
the popular epigrammatist. Where three
e ayas . Kayasths are gathered together a thunder-
bolt is sure to fall ; when honest men fall out the Kayasth gets
his chance. When a Kayasth takes to money-lending he is a
merciless creditor. He is a man of figures ; he lives by the
point of his pen ; in his house even the cat learns two letters
and a half. He is a versatile creature, and where there are
no tigers he will become a shikari; but he is no more to be
trusted than a crow or a snake without a tail. One of the
failings sometimes imputed to the educated Indian is
attacked in the saying, " Drinking comes to a Kayasth with his
mother's milk."
Considering the enormous strength of the agricultural
population of India, one would have expected to find' more
proverbs directed against the great cultivating castes. Possibly
the reason may be that they made most of the proverbs, and
people can hardly be expected to sHarpen their wit on their
own shortcomings. In two Provinces, however, the rural
Pasquin has let out very freely at the morals and manners
of the Jat, the typical peasant of the Eastern
^ * ■ Punjab and the western districts of the
United Provinces. You may as well, we are told, look for good
in a Jat as for weevils in a stone. He is your friend only so long
as you have a stick in your hand. If he cannot harm you
he will leave a bad smell as he goes by. To be civil to
him is like giving treacle to a donkey. If he runs amuck it
takes God to hold him. A Jat's laugh would break an ordinary
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS 133
man's ribs. When he learns manners, he blows his nose with
a mat, and there is a great run on the garlic. His baby
has a plough-tail for a plaything. The Jat stood on his own
corn-heap and called out to the King's elephant-drivers, "Hi
there, what will you take for those little donkeys?" He is
credited with practising fraternal polyandry, like the Venetian
nobility of the early eighteenth century, as a measure of
domestic economy, and a whole family are said to have one
wife between them.
The Kunbi is not so roughly handled as the Jat, but some
unpleasant things are said about him. You
will as soon grow a creeper on a rock as ^^kSSl^ °^
make him into a true friend. He is as
crooked as a sickle, but you can beat him straight. If he gets
a stye on his eyelid he is as savage as a bull. He is so obsti-
nate that he plants thorns across the path. If it rains in the
Hathiya asterism (end of September), and there is a bumper
crop, he gives his wife gold ear-rings. You may know her by
the basket on her head and the baby on either hip.
In the peculiar ways of the artisans and of the castes who
are engaged in personal service the makers of „,^ .„ ^
1 , r , , , • , ^ The Barber,
proverbs have found abundant material for
vituperative sarcasm. Of the village barber, who is also a
marriage broker, a surgeon, a chiropodist, and a quack, it is
said, "Among men most deceitful is the barber, among birds the
crow, among things of the water the tortoise " — a sentiment
reminding one how on a celebrated occasion Br'er Tarrypin
outwitted Br'er Rabbit. Barbers, doctors, pleaders, prostitutes
— -all must have cash down. A barber learns by shaving fools,
for which reason you should stick to your barber but change
your washerman, since a new Dhobi washes clean. You
may hammer a barber on the head with a shoe, but you will
not make him hold his tongue. A barber found a purse, and
all the world knew it. Of the inquisitive barber the wise say,
" Throw a dog a morsel to stop his mouth," which, if applied
to the modern representative of pertinacious curiosity, might
read, "Choke off a reporter with a scrap of stale news." A
barber out of work bleeds the wall or shaves a cat to keep his
hand in. A barber's penny, all profit and no risk. A burglary
at a barber's : stolen, three pots of combings ! If you go back
four generations you will find that your uncle was a barber,
the suggestion being that the barber is ^sometimes unduly
intimate with the inmates of the zenana.
134 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Trust not the goldsmith; he is no man's friend, and his
word is worthless. If you have never seen
The Goldsmith. , t_ i i i. i. t u
a tiger, look at a cat ; ii you have never seen
a thief, look at a Sonar. The goldsmith, the tailor and the
weaver are too sharp for the angel of death ; God alone knows
where to have them. A Sonar will rob his mother and sister ;
he will filch gold even from his wife's nose-ring ; if he cannot
steal his belly will burst with longing. He will ruin your
ornament by substituting base metal for the gold you gave
him, and will clamour for wages into the bargain. A pair of
rogues: the goldsmith and the man who sifts his ashes for
scraps.
The potter gets off cheaper than the rest ; his honesty is
not impeached, though his intelligence is
The Potter. , ,, ^^ -j- i j ^u • ■ e
held up to ridicule, and there is a vein oi
philosophy in some of the sayings about him. He is always
thinking of his pots, and if.he falls out with his wife he finds a
solace in pulling his donkey's ears. But when the clay is on
the wheel the potter may shape it as he will, though the clay
rejoins, " Now you trample on me, one day I shall trample on
you." Turned on the wheel yet no better for it; praise not
the pot till it has been fired; are general proverbs of life to
which there are numerous parallels. If you are civil to a
potter he will neither respect you nor will he sell you his pots.
The frequency of petty thefts in India is illustrated by the
saying, " The potter can sleep sound ; no one will steal his
clay." He lives penuriously, and his own domestic crockery
consists of broken pots. He is a stupid fellow— in a deserted
village even a potter is a scribe — and his wife is a meddlesome
fool, who is depicted as burning herself, like a Hindu wife, on
the carcase of the Dhobi's donkey {Dhobl ke gadhe par Kumlidriii
sail hut).
A blacksmith's single stroke is worth a goldsmith's hundred ;
but a Lobar is a bad friend ; he will either
The Blacksmith. , -..t n i-n -i-u i
burn you with fire or stifle you with smoke.
His shop is always in an untidy mess ; it is like the place
where donkeys roll. Sparks are the lot of the blacksmith's
legs. Such is his good nature that a monkey begged of him a
pair of anklets. But you should not buy his pet maina, even if
you can get it for a farthing, for the bird will drive you mad by
mimicking the noise of the hammer. " To sell a needle in the
Lobars' quarter," is one of the Indian analogues of our '" Coals
to Newcastle.'" " Before the smith can make a screw he must
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS 135
learn to make a nail " is a proverbial truism apparently of
comparatively modern origin.
The carpenter thinks of nothing but wood, and his wife
walks and talks in time to the noise of the ^^^^ carpenter,
plane. When out of work he keeps his hand
in by planing his friends' buttocks. " The carpenter's face " is
cited as a type of unpunctuality, since it is never to be seen at
the time when he promised to come. " A whore's oath and a
Sutar's chip " are examples of worthlessness. A fool of a Barhai
has neither chisel nor adze and wants to be the village carpenter !
The oil-presser is no man's friend ; he earns a rupee and
calls it eight annas. He sits at ease while
his mill goes round, and beguiles his hours anddeaierTnoii.
of leisure by inventing improper stories, so
that when two Telis meet their talk is unfit for publication.
His unfortunate bullock is always blindfold, and walks miles
and miles without getting any further. Once upon a time the
bullock was lost, and the Teli is still looking for the peg to
which it was tied. On another occasion his bullock took to
fighting and the owner was sued before the Kazi for damages.
The Kazi's finding ran thus: "What made the beast fight?
The oil-cake you fed it on ; so give me the ox and pay damages
into the bargain." His wife saves a little oil by giving short
measure to her customers, but " God takes all at once " when
the jar breaks and the thick dust sucks up its contents. His
daughter, on the other hand, is represented as giving herself
airs and wondering what oil-cake can be.
The tailor, the goldsmith and the weaver, these three are
too sharp for the angel of death ; God alone ^^^ Tailor
knows where to have them. The tailor's
" this evening " and the shoemaker's " next morning " never
come. However sharp his sight, a Darzi sees nothing, because
he cannot take his eyes off his work. The influence of Hindu
caste on Muhammadans is illustrated by the saying, " A Darzi's
son is a Darzi and must sew as long as he lives." A Darzi
steals your cloth and makes you pay for sewing it. When a
tailor is out of work he sews up his son's mouth. The estima-
tion in whicTa he is held by his neighbours may be gauged by
the saying, " A snake in a tailor's house : who wants to kill it?"
All the world have their clothes washed, but the Dhobi is
always unclean (ceremonially), and to see The -Washerman,
him the first thing in the morning is sure to
bring bad luck. His finery is never his own, but no one has so
136 PEOPLE OF INDIA
many changes of linen as a Dhobi. He will not hesitate to
use the king's scarf as a loin cloth ; at his wedding the clothes
of his customers are spread as carpets for the guests ; and his
son is the dandy of the village on a whistle and a bang, that is
to say, by wearing other people's clothes which his father
washes by giving them a bang on a stone and whistling. As
for soap, none is used unless there are enough Dhobis to set
up competition. When there is a robbery in the Dhobi's house
the neighbours lose their clothes. He tears people's clothes
and says it was the wind, but he is careful not to damage his
father's things. You should change your Dhobi as you change
your linen, for a new Dhobi washes clean. In a Koiri village
the Dhobi is the accountant, for he is the only man who can
add two and two together. He knows when the village is
poor just as the orderly knows when his master has been
degraded. The Dhobi's donkey is habitually overworked, and
must carry huge bundles of linen while " its life oozes out of
its eyes."
The occupation of fishing ranks rather low as it involves
the taking of life, but most Indians are great
The risherman. n t. i. j ui. ^ji.
fish-eaters and one would have expected to
find more proverbs dealing with the subject. The few that I
have collected seem to suggest that the manners of fishing
folk are much the same everywhere. "A fisherman's tongue"
corresponds to our " Billingsgate " ; a Machhi woman will
scold even when she is dead ; three clouts from an oilwoman
are better than three kisses from a fishwife. There is a touch
of local colour in the Sind saying, " Sometimes the float is
uppermost, sometimes the fisherman," a reference to the
practice of fishing balanced face downwards on an earthen
pot which is liable to break or capsize.
In all parts of India the stupidity of the weaver, especially
of the Muhammadan weaver (Jolaha), is the
eaver. staple subject of proverbial philosophy. His
loom being sunk in the ground, he is said to dig a pit and
fall into it himself If he has a pot of grain he thinks himself
a Raja. He goes out to cut grass when even the crows are
flying home to roost. He finds the hind peg of a plough, and
proposes to start farming on the strength of it. If there are
eight Jolahas and nine huqqas, they fight for the odd one. The
Jolaha goes to see a ram fight and gets butted himself. Being
one of a company of twelve who had safely forded a river,
he can only find eleven, as he forgets to count himself, and
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS 137
straightway goes off to bury himself in the belief that, as he
is missing, he must be dead. Some Jolahas walking across
country come to a field" of linseed looking blue in the moon-
light; they wonder how deep the water is and hope that all
of them can swim. A Jolaha gets into his boat and forgets
to weigh the anchor; after rowing all night he finds himself
at home and rejoices in the thought that the village has
followed him out of pure affection. A crow snatches a piece
of bread from a Jolaha's child and flies with it to the roof; the
prudent father takes away the ladder before he gives the child
any more. A Jolaha hears the Koran being read and bursts
into tears ; on being asked what passage moves him so, he
explains that the wagging beard of the Mulla reminded him
of a favourite goat that he had lost. When his dogs bark at
a tiger he proceeds to whip his child. He has no sense of
propriety ; he will crack indecent jokes with his mother and
sister, and his wife will pull her father's beard. As a workman
he is dilatory and untrustworthy. He will steal a reel of
thread when he gets the chance ; he has his own standard of
time; he lies like a Chamar; and even if you see him brushing
the newly woven cloth, you. must not believe him when he
says that it is ready.
Below these more or less respectable members of rural
society, we find a number of outcast groups, village menials, or
broken tribes some of whom pollute the high-caste man even
at a distance, while others are guilty of the crowning enormity
of eating beef. Among these the Chamar,
. 1 , ,,1 J lii The Tanner and
tanner, shoemaker, cobbler, and cattle- shoemaker,
poisoner, is the subject of a number of in-
jurious reflexions. Though he is as wily as a jackal, he is also
so stupid that he sits on his awl and beats himself for stealing
it. He laments that he cannot tan his own skin. He knows
nothing beyond his last, and the shortest way to deal with
him is to beat him with a shoe of his own making, a
practical axiom which is expressed in the saying that "old
shoes should be offered to the shoemaker's god." " Stitch,
stitch "is the note of the cobblers' quarter; "stink, stink" of
the street where the tanners live. The Chamar's wife goes
barefoot, but his daughter, when she has just attained puberty,
is as graceful as an ear of millet. The functions of the
Chamarin as the Mrs. Gamp of the village are rather inele-
gantl3r referred to in the saying, "There is no hiding the belly
from the midwife." The hides and bones of dead cattle are the
138 PEOPLE OF INDIA
perquisite of tlie Chamar, and in some of the great grazing
districts he is credibly suspected of assisting nature by means
of a bolus of arsenic, craftily wrapped in a leaf or a petal of the
mahua flower, and dropped where the cattle are feeding. A
humorous allusion to this practice, which is exceedingly
difficult to detect, may be traced in the proverb which repre-
sents the Chamar as enquiring after the health of the village
headman's buffalo. In these latter days Chamars are no longer
forbidden to drink Ganges water, and this perversion of the
old order of things is said to have caused "the righteous to
die while the wicked live."
The Doms, among whom we find scavengers, vermin-eaters,
executioners, basket-makers, musicians, and
^ °^' professional burglars, probably represent
the remnants of a Dravidian tribe crushed out of recognition by
the invading Aryans and condemned to menial and degrading
occupations. Sir G. Grierson has thrown out the picturesque
suggestion that they are the ancestors of the European gipsies,
and that Rom or Romany is nothing more than a variant of
Dom. In the ironical language of the proverbs the Dom
figures as " the lord of death " because he provides the wood
for the Hindu funeral pyre. He is ranked with Brahmans and
goats as a creature useless in time of need. A common and
peculiarly offensive form of abuse is to tell a man that he has
eaten a Dom's leavings. A series of proverbs represents him
as making friends with members of various castes and faring
ill or well in the process. Thus the Kanjar steals his dog, and
the Gujar loots his house ; on the other hand the barber shaves
him for nothing, and the silly Jolaha makes him a suit of
clothes. His traditions associate him with donkeys, and it is
said that if these animals could excrete sugar Doms would no
longer be beggars. "A Dom in a palanquin and a Brahman
on foot " is a type of society turned upside down. Neverthe-
less, outcast as he is, the Dom occupies a place of his own in
the fabric of Indian society. At funerals he provides the wood
and gets the corpse-clothes as his perquisite; he makes the
discordant music that accompanies a marriage procession ; and
baskets, winnowing-fans, and wicker articles in general are the
work of his hands.
In the west of India Mahars and Dheds hold much the same
place as the Dom. In the walled villages of the Maratha
country the Mahar is the scavenger, watchman and gate-keeper.
His presence pollutes ; he is not allowed to live in the village ;
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS 139
and his miserable shanty is huddled up against the wall outside.
But he challenges the stranger who comes
to the gate, and for this and other services "^^^ ^^f ^""^
he is allowed various perquisites, among
them that of begging for broken victuals from house to house.
He offers old blankets to his god, and his child's playthings are
bones. The Dhed's status is equally low. If he looks at a
water jar he pollutes its contents ; if you run up against him
by accident, you must go off and bathe. If you annoy a Dhed
he sweeps up the dust in your face. When he dies, the world
is so much the cleaner. If you go to the Dheds' quarter you
find there nothing but a heap of bones.
This relegation of the low castes to a sort of Ghetto is
carried to great lengths in the south of India
where the intolerance of the Brahman is ThePanah.
very conspicuous. In the typical Madras village the Pariahs —
" dwellers in the quarter " (para) as this broken tribe is now
called * — live in an irregular cluster of conical hovels of palm
leaves known as the pdrchery, the squalor and untidiness of
which present the sharpest contrast to the trim street of tiled
masonry houses where the Brahmans congregate. " Every
village," says the proverb, " has its Pariah hamlet " — a place of
pollution the census of which is even now taken with difficulty
owing to the reluctance of the high-caste enumerator to enter
its unclean precincts. " A palm-tree," says another, " casts no
shade; a Pariah has no caste and rules." The popular estimate
of the morals of the Pariah comes out in the saying, " He that
breaks his word is a Pariah at heart " ; while the note of irony
predominates in the pious question, " If a Pariah offers boiled
rice will not the god take it ? " the implication being that the
Brahman priests who take the offerings to idols are too greedy
to inquire by whom they are presented.
The organized animistic tribes, who are Wholly outside the
bounds of Hinduism, seem for the most part to have escaped
the attention of the makers of proverbs, probably because they
have no specific place in the communal life of the village. The
Bhil alone, hunter, blackmailer, and high-
, , , . J u- • The Bhil.
way robber, has impressed his curious per^
sonality upon the people of the jungle country of Western India
and Rajputana. He is, we are told, the king of the jungle ; his
* [Bishop Caldwell [Dravidian Grammar, 2nd edit., 1875, P- 549) derives it from Tajnil
parei, " a drum " ; but this has been questioned. E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of
Southern India, 1909, vol.^'vi., p. 77 et seq?\
140 PEOPLE OF INDIA
arrow flies straight. He is always ready for a fight, but he is
also a man of his word, and with a Bhil for escort your life
is safe. If you manage to please him he is a Bhil ; if you rub
him the wrong way up he is the son of a dog. He has a large
number of children, and in his household there is no dawdling
as the family is always on the move.
From the wilds of Assam comes the quaint saying, "The
Naga's wife gets a baby; the Naga himself takes the medicine."
This sounds rather like a reminiscence of the couvade, but it
may be nothing more than a reflexion on the inteUigence of the
Nagas.
Of the proverbs discussed in the foregoing paragraphs each
has for its subject a particular caste and con-
Vvavevhs!^ tains no reference to any other. I now turn to
a class of proverbs which it will be convenient
to group separately, since each of them deals with several
castes and seizes upon their points of difference or resemblance.
These comparative proverbs are curious in themselves, and
throw a good deal of light on the relative estimation accorded
to different castes by popular opinion. Here again the Brahman
bulks large and figures in queer company. A black Brahman,
a fair Sudra, an under-sized Musalman, a ghar-jamai (a son-in-
law who lives with and on his father-in-law), an adopted son
are all birds of a feather. Trust not a black Brahman or a fair
Pariah. A dark Brahman, a fair Chuhra, a woman with a beard
— these three are contrary to nature. The Kunbi died from
seeing a ghost ; the Brahman from wind in the stomach ; the
goldsmith from bile. The first is superstitious; the second
over-eats himself; the third sits too long over his fire. A
Brahman met a barber; "God be with you" said the one,
but the other held up his looking-gl^ss, thus countering the-
Brahman's demand for a fee for his professional blessing by
asserting his own claim to be paid for shaving people.
Brahmans are made to eat, Bhavaiyas to play and sing, Kolis to
commit robbery, and widows to mourn. The Mulla, the Bhat,
the Brahman, and the Dom, these four were not born on giving
day. A Brahman for a minister, a Bhat for favourite, and the
Raja's fate is sealed. A Dom, a Brahman, and a goat are of no
use in time of need. If you cannot ruin yourself by keeping a
Brahman servant, taking money from a Kasai, or begetting too
many daughters, you will do it by going to law with bigger
men. The Brahman is lord of the water ; the Rajput lord of the
land ; the Kayasth lord of the pen ; and the Khatri lord of the
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS 141
back, ie., a coward. A Khatri woman brings forth sons always ;
a Brahman woman only now and then — a rather cryptic utter-
ance which may perhaps be a hit at the practice of female
infanticide imputed to the Khatris.
Kayasths, Khatris, and cocks support their kin ; Brahmans,
Doms and Nais destroy theirs. Bribe a Kayasth ; feed a Brah-
man; water paddy and betel; but kick a low-caste man. A
Turk wants toddy ; a bullock wants grain ; a Brahman wants
mangoes ; and a Kayasth wants an appointment. A Dhobi is
better than a Kayasth ; a Sonar is better than a cheat ; a dog is
better than a deity ; and a jackal better than a Pandit. Kazis,
Kasbis, Kasais, and Kayasths — the four bad K's. There be
three that dance in other people's houses and profit by their
misfortunes — the Kayasth, the Baidya, and the Dalai or tout
who promotes litigation. You may know a good Kayasth by
his pen ; a good Rajput by his moustache ; and a good Baidya
by his searching medicine. From the last sentiment it would
appear that the messorum dura ilia are much the same all over
the world and that the Indian cultivator, like the English
villager, wants his physic nasty and wants it strong.
When the tax collector is a Jat, the money-lender a Brah-
man, and the ruler of the land' a Baniya, these are signs of
God's wrath. Jats, Bhats, caterpillars and widows — all these
should be kept hungry ; if they eat their fill they are sure to
do harm. When a buffalo is full she refuses oil cake ; when a
Baniya is well off he gives time to his debtors; when a Jat
is flourishing he starts a quarrel; when your banker is in a
bad way he fastens upon you. When the Jat prospers he
shuts up the path (by ploughing over it) ; when the Karar
(money-lender) prospers he shuts up the Jat.
Loot the Baniya if you meet him, but let the Pathan go
on his way. Better have no friends at all than take up with an
Afghan, a Kamboh, or a rascally Kashmiri. The crow, the
Kamboh, and the Kalal cherish their kin ; the Jat, the buffalo,
and the crocodile devour their kin. All castes are God's
creatures, but three castes are ruthless, the Ahir, the Baniya,
the Kasbi ; when they get a chance they have no shame.
There are three careless knaves, the washerman, the barber,
and the tailor. "The goldsmith's acid and the tailor's tag."
This highly-condensed saying requires explanation ; it is a
proverb of delay, the suggestion being that the Sonar tells you
that your ornament is ready, all but the final cleaning with
acid ; while the Darzi says that your coat is ready and only the
142 PEOPLE OF INDIA
tags for fastening it have to be sewn on. The Teli knows all
about oil-seeds ; the Shimpi (Kanarese tailor) all about lies ;
the village watchman all about thieves ; the Lingayat all about
everything. The washerman knows who is poor in the
village; the goldsmith knows whose ornaments are of pure
gold.
Babhans, dogs, and Bhats are always at war with their kin.
Seven Chamars aire not as mean as one Babhan, and seven
Babhans are not as mean as one Nuniyar Baniya. In no man's
land one makes friends with Gujars and Gaddis. The Gareri
got drunk when he saw the Ahir in liquor. The Kachhi is not
a good caste ; there is no virtue in a Mali ; and the Lodha is
a poor creature who ploughs with tears in his eyes.
We may pass from these genre pictures of the standard
types of Indian village life to groups defined by religion rather
than by caste, but which nevertheless are regarded as castes
by popular usage. Conspicuous among these are the Parsis,
concerning whom many proverbs are current
arsi. jj^ Gujarat, the country where they first ap-
peared after leaving Persia. Considering how much the Parsis
have done for Bombay, both by their spirit of enterprise and
by their munificent donations to public purposes, it is a little
surprising to find them so savagely attacked in the proverbs of
their earliest home in India. The Parsi, it is said, loses no
time in breaking his word; a Parsi youth never tells the truth ;
a bankrupt Parsi starts a liquor shop, and celebrates the day
of Zoroaster by drinking brandy. Domestic scandal is hinted
at in the punning proverb, "All is dark (andhyara) in a house
where you find an andhydru or Parsi priest." " Oh, Dasturji,"
says a supposed penitent, " how shall my sins be forgiven ? "
" First present a gold cat and a silver necklace, and then we
will see." The proverb, " If a Parsi grows rich he takes a
second wife," has ceased to be applicable since the reproach of
polygamy has been removed by the Parsi Marriage Act, a self-
denying ordinance passed at the instance of the Parsis them-
selves. The influence of their Indian environment on the
Parsis is illustrated by the saying, " The Parsi woman off"ers
a cocoanut at the Holi," and by the curious fact that the mitre-
shaped hat worn by old-fashioned Parsis is merely a paste-
board copy of a Gujarati pagri or turban. It is interesting
and characteristic to find the Parsis asserting their own
superiority in retaliatory proverbs. " Crows your uncles and
Parsis your fathers" is their rejoinder, in the suggestive style
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS 143
of Oriental innuendo, to the Hindus who call them crows on
account of their custom of exposing their dead. " The Hindu
worships stones," say the Parsis, " the Musalman bows down
to saints; the Parsi religion is as pure as the water of the
Ganges." Finally, we have the quaint saying, " A Parsi's stroke,
like a cannon ball," which one would like to trace to the hard-
hitting achievements of Parsi cricketers.
In India, as in mediaeval Europe, the hypocrisy, the immo-
rality and the shameless rapacity of ascetics
and religious mendicants move the indigna-
tion of the proverbial philosopher. Mendicancy is the veil
that covers the lion. An ascetic's friendship spells ruin to his
friends. Money will buy the most pious of saints. When a
man cannot get a wife he turns ascetic. When his crop has
been burnt the Jat becomes a fakir. When fish are in season
the Jogi loses his head. One widow has more virtue than
a hundred Dandis. The Jogi and the profligate pass sleepless
nights. " She went to the fakir to learn morals ; the holy man
stripped off her trousers." A sect mark on his forehead and
ten rosaries round his neck— in appearance a saint, but at heart
in love with a prostitute. Promise a Brahman nothing, but
promise a mendicant less. The local Jogi gets no alms.
" Reverend father, what a crowd of disciples ! " " They will
vanish, my son, as soon as they are hungry." "What has a
saint to do with dainties ? " " If there is no butter-milk I can
manage with curds." "Oh, mother, give me some sweets;
they are very good for the eyes." " My son, if you have a
taste for milk and cream you should turn Nanakshahi." "As
soon as the ducks lay eggs the devotees eat them up."
In examining the proverbs relating to village life, no attempt
has been made to group the material by provinces. The atmo-
sphere of rural society is very much the same all over India,
and the sayings which' emanate from it breathe everywhere
much the same spirit and partake of the same general character.
Except in Sind, Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Pro-
vince, where the "Hindus form an insignificant minority, the
proverbial philosophy of the village takes its cue from Hindu-
ism, and everywhere vents its spleen on the familiar figures
of the extortionate priest, the greedy mendicant, the grasping
money-lender, the garrulous barber, the pilfering goldsmith,
the knavish washerman, the foolish weaver — all of them Hindus
or Muhammadans grouped in occupational castes of the Hindu
type.
144 PEOPLE OF INDIA
But in dealing with the specific proverbs which depict the
„^ „ , foibles of Muhammadans it will be convenient
The Muhamma- 4. j ^ • • , rr^i
dans. to adopt a provincial arrangement. The
bulk of the material is considerable, and it
can hardly be grouped on any other principle; and the geo-
graphical distribution of Muhammadans happens to corre-
spond pretty closely with the vital distinction noticed in an
earlier chapter, between the Muhammadan who claims dis-
tinguished foreign descent and the native Indian converts who,
in Bengal at any rate, vi^ere recruited from the dregs of the
Hindu community, and embraced Islam as a short cut to
social promotion.
The proverbs of Baluchistan and the North-West border
In Baluchistan furnish plentiful illustrations of the ameni-
and North-West ties current in a primitive tribal society, the
rrontier Province, j^gj^bers of which are endowed with a
pretty sense of allusive humour and addicted to the vigorous
prosecution of all conceivable forms of vendetta. The Afghan
is faithless {Afghan be Iman). A Pashtun's self-will will bring
him to hell. A saint one moment, a devil the next, that is the
Pathan. A Pathan's enmity is like a dung fire. The Pathans
took the village and the Behnas (cotton carders) got swollen
heads. A Pathan's mouth waters the moment his hands are
dry, i.e. he is hungry directly he has washed his hands after
a meal. The weak antithesis of my rendering is a poor sub-
stitute for the crisp rhyme of the original. Hath sukha Pathan
bhiikha. "Be a thief, be a thief!" say the Afrldi parents to
their child as they pass it from one to the other through a hole
in a wall, and thus baptize it in burglary. An Achakzai is
a thief who will steal an empty flour bag. Here comes the
Kakar besmeared with filth; when you meet him hit him with
a stick ; kick him out of the mosque and you will save trouble
all round. A Masezai has no hope of God, and God has no
hope of a Masezai. Though a Kasi become a saint, he will still
have a strain of the devil in him. A Khatak can ride, but he is
a man of but one charge ; so say the enemies of the Khataks,
the Marwats. The Khataks retaliate with the pleasant saying,
" Keep a Marwat to look after asses, his stomach well filled
and his feet well worn." "A hundred Bhitanni ate a hundred
sheep, so thriftless were they." Hold up a rupee and you may
see any Mohmand, whether man or woman.
" Blood for blood " is the watch-word of the Baloch, a tribe
recruited from all sorts of masterless men, and held together
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS 14S
mainly by the bond of the blood-feud. Of themselves they say
in poetical strain : " The hills are the fortress of the Baloch ;
for a steed he has white sandals ; for a brother his sharp
sword"; and of the chief of Las Bela, "Though the Jam be the
Jam, yet is he by descent a Jadgal (converted Jat) and therefore
not the equal of the princely race of Baloch." To these
vapourings their neighbours have the vulgar retort, " There
goes a Baloch with his trousers full of wind," a reflexion at
once on the boastfulness and on the expansive nether garments
of the average Baloch tribesman. The democratic spirit of the
Baloch is illustrated by the saying, "One Sanni and seven
chiefs." To common honesty they are strangers. "The Baloch
who steals gains paradise for his ancestors even unto seven
generations." Wisdom begged in vain for mercy from the
Rinds (the conquering tribe of Balochistan) and decency from
the Meds (the seafaring people of the Makran Coast). The
black-faced Meds are like tamarisk sparks, without any glow of
courage. The Med sailor lives by the wind and by the wind
he dies. The Med is wrapped up in his voyage, and his wife
is wrapped up with her lover.
No one seems to have a good word for the Brahui. He is
no man's friend ; he is the striped snake that bit the Prophet ;
he is always coveting other people's property ; he will quarrel
over an inheritance even with his mother, against whom he
enforces the tribal custom by which Brahui women are excluded
from succession. If you have never seen an ignorant lump
come and look at a Brahui ; he is the tail of a dog and his good
is evil. (The word sharr which means " good " in Arabic
means "evil" in Brahui.) The Jhalawans of Khuzdar are
without honour ; the Kalatis have ever been faithless ; the
army of the Kurds vanishes like the spark of a burning juniper ;
the Muhammad Shahi are blood-suckers ; the Raisani usurers ;
if you ask a jackass whether he has any relations, he will tell
you that the Sassoli boast of being his cousins. The Mengals
eat half-cooked meat, and " a Mengal's roast " is a proverbial
synonym for an immature scheme. The Lahri alone escape
general condemnation ; their honesty is rated so high that in
a country where promises are ratified by shaking hands "a
Lahri's two fingers " ranks as a typical guarantee of faithful
performance.
In Sind and Gujarat the pretentious poverty and the domestic
squabbles of the Miyan or petty Musalman landholder are a
favourite subject of ridicule. The Miyan is passing rich on a
R, PI 10
146 PEOPLE OF INDIA
mat alid a tooth-brush ; the pole of his carriage is spliced with
string, and he stops at every grog-shop on
Gv^arat^ ^he road. The Miyan's mare could only carry
him to the end of the village. Look at the
Miyan's new fashion : his coat is tied up in three places ! The
Miyan swaggers abroad but is meek as a mouse at home;
when he comes back from tinning pots and pans, Bibl, his wife,
combs his beard; he is only a ser and she is a ser and a quarter.
A cheerful couple, Miyan and Bibi ! when he broke his stick on
her she smashed the water-jar. The Bibl cries for sweets and
the Miyan licks the lamps in the mosque. The Miyan cannot
get it and the Bib! does not like it (sour grapes). The Miyan
has no shoes to beat his wife with. The Miyan's beard on fire,
and Bibl thinks he is warming himself. Miyan a fop and Bibi
sweeping the house. The Miyan killed a crow and swore that
he had shot a tiger. A Miyan's talk, like a kick from a fly.
The Miyan is ripe for the grave and the Bibi is ripe for the
bridal bed. (January and May.) "Why weeping, Miyan?"
" My wife died to-day." " Why laughing, Miyan ? " "I marry
a new one to-day." God is straight, but the Miyan is crooked :
if he is going north he says he is going south. " Time to get
up, Miyan ! " "All right, give me a hand." When Miyan goes
to Mecca, Bibi goes to Malwa. A Miyan's cat ; a Miyan's cow
buffalo. (Both half-starved.)
The Jat Musalman cultivator of Sind is a person of dirty
habits ; two blankets and a half last him a lifetime. If you are
civil to him he will knock you down. He is a merciless and
importunate creditor — " the Jat's farthing will break the skin
while the Baniya's hundred rupees will not hurt you." If you
rely on the word of a Jat you. will come to grief, yet sometimes
he meets his match : his wife soaked the yarn to make it heavy,
but the Baniya weighed it with false weights. Educate a Jat
and he becomes a nuisance to gods and men.
Throughout Northern India the Mulla (priest) and the Kazi
In the Punjab (marriage registrar and judge) fare badly at
the hands of the popular oracle. The face of
a Mulla conceals the heart of a butcher. The Kazi will drink if
he gets the liquor for nothing. The Mulla was drowned
because he had never given anything to anybody, and could
not bear to give his hand even to save his life.
A Kazi's verandah is a place to sit in after meals, when you
do not mind waiting for a decision long delayed, and " a Kazi's
judgment " is a synonym for injustice. Yet during his life all
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS 147
men honour the Kazi ; his bitch may give pups where she
pleases, and when she dies the whole town is at the funeral.
But when the Kazi himself dies, not a soul follows his coffin to
the grave. So every one strokes the Mulla's cow until the
Mulla dies from a surfeit of milk and parched rice. Your love,
it is said, is like that of the Mulla who feeds fowls in order to
eat them. A Mulla's outing takes him as far as the mosque
where he looks for alms. The horse kifcked him off, but the
Mulla boasted of his ride. The Mulla is a thief and the Banga
who calls to prayer is his witness. Half a doctor is a danger
to life ; half a Mulla is a danger to faith.
In the United Provinces they say, " A Musalman, a wasp and
a parrot are no man's friends ; in time of
trouble they will turn on you and sting or ^rovinoes!*^
bite." When rich, a Mir ; when poor, a
Fakir ; when dead, a Pir. Sesamum, molasses, and the love of
a Musalman are sweet at first but afterwards turn to bitterness.
Here and in the ironical question, " Since when has the Bibi
become a Brahmani," the allusion is to the facilities for divorce
among Muhammadans. Where there are Musalmans there is
population ; but their love is the friendship of a snake ; even
two families of them cannot agree. A Musalman takes back the
gift he has given, a reference to the practice of resuming a
married daughter's dowry at her death. The true Musalmans
lie buried in their graves, and their faith lies buried in their
books. A Musalman convert cries " Allah ! Allah ! " all day
long. Mirsahib is indeed of high family with his smooth cheeks
and his empty stomach. " Mirsahib ! ' Times are hard ; you
must hold on your turban with both hands."
From Behar we get the following : A real Miyan is a Miyan
indeed but some Miyans are Pinjaras (cotton ^^ Behar
teasers). When the Miyan (family tutor) is
at the door it is a bad look-out for the dog. A farthing's worth
of soap makes the Miyan a Babu.
The south of India also treats the subject from the Hindu
point of view. The country that has no crows has no Musal-
mans. What does a beef-eater know of j.^ Madras
decent language? If girls are sold for a
farthing a-piece, don't buy a Musalmani. A Musalman
ascetic's butter-milk is toddy.
A curious series of proverbs is occupied with the delineation,
in none too polished language, of provincial and local
characteristics. " Never make friends with a Deccani," say the
148 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Gujaratis, " he is as false as a latrine is foul ; put not your faith
in a three-cornered pagri (turban)." The
local Proverbs. Marathas' retort courteous is : " The fool of
a Gujarati, kick him first and then he may
understand what you want." "A Dravidian's nose-scratching"
is another Maratha proverb aimed at the devious and
insincere ways of the Dravidian Brahman who is represented
as scratching his nose by putting his hand round the back of
his neck.
As has been mentioned in an earlier chapter, the strong
sense of family and racial obligations, and the remarkable
capacity for adapting themselves to modern conditions of life
which distinguish the Bengalis have led to their diffusion all
over Northern India, where they exercise considerable influence
in certain circles. But these domestic and public virtues, while
they have gained for Bengalis a share in all grades of salaried
employment proportionate to their industry and ability, have
somehow, possibly for this very reason, failed to endear them
to the other Indian races ; and the supposed characteristics of
this type, the most marked and the most provincial in India,
are glanced at in a series of needlessly spiteful proverbs. Their
dark complexion and the habit imputed to them of chewing
betel incessantly are referred to in the guise of a traveller's
observation : — " I have seen the land of Bengal, where teeth are
red, and faces black." There is nothing to show that Bengalis
chew betel more assiduously than other Indians. But both
betel and areca nut grow well in Bengal ; the province is very
rich and very lightly taxed, and the people are able to indulge
in small luxuries. "Bengal is the home of magic and the
women are full of witchery," and " If a Bengali is a man what is
a devil " serve to illustrate the suspicion which attaches to
people who live in a distant country far away from the great
centres of religious orthodoxy and social propriety, and may
perhaps be a specific allusion to the debased forms of Tantric
worship alleged to be current in Bengal. " A hungry Bengali
cries ' Rice, rice ' "—is the gibe of the fighting races at a diet
associated in their minds with effeminacy and cowardice.
" Twelve Bengalis cannot cut off a goat's ear " imputes feeble-
ness and timidity in more direct terms. "An Eastern donkey
with a Western bray " is a hit at the Bengali Babus who affect
European manners and dress. The Assamese, a type closely
akin to the Bengali, are attacked for their vanity and social pre-
tensions. "A pagri on his head and nakedness below, the
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS 149
Assamese wishes to lead the way." These ill-natured witti-
cisms savour of the malice of the unsuccessful competitor, the
idle apprentice who in a well-regulated world would be
debarred from manufacturing proverbs for general consumption.
While making general accusations of cowardice they take no
account of the proficiency of the educated Bengalis of the
present day in football and hockey, games not unaccompanied
with hard knocks. They forget that, in the Eastern districts of
Bengal, the monotony of rural existence is relieved by Homeric
battles in which the favourite weapon is a heavy fish spear made
by splitting a bamboo into a cluster of branches, each of which is
armed with formidable steel barbs. People who fight half-naked
with these appalling implements can afford to disregard the
charge of personal timidity. Worse still, the proverbs ignore
such instances of conspicuous gallantry on the part of Bengalis
as was furnished a few months ago by a Calcutta undergraduate,
Nafar Chandra Kundu, who let himself down into a sewer
reeking with poisonous gas in the almost hopeless attempt to
rescue three municipal coolies who were lying there insensible
and whose fate he himself shared. Courage of this order is rare
anywhere in the world.
The swagger of the ubiquitous Marwari money-lender, who
pretends that he is a Raja in his own country, is thus ridiculed :
"For houses hurdles of madar; for hedges heaps of withered
thorn; millet for bread, horse-peas for pulse; this is thy kingdom.
Raja of Marwar ! " Another proverb alludes to the shape of
their pagris and their capacity for getting on in the world.
"The three-tufted ones (Marwaris), the red-faced ones
(Europeans), and the cactus plant cannot five without in-
creasing."
Throughout this chapter the endeavour has been to arrange
the material on inductive lines, so that the reader of what to
many people will be strange sayings from an
unknown world shall be led by easy stages Proverbs,
from the particular to the general, from the
concrete to the abstract, from reflexions on the vices and foibles
of individual castes to the largercriticism of Indian life, as viewed
through the medium of caste ideas and prepossessions, which
is put forth in some of the more philosophical proverbs.
Commencing, therefore, with a gallery of village portraits, we
proceeded to examine the proverbs which combine and com-
pare the various types, passing on to those which deal with
the larger groupings of sect and religion and the wider field of
ISO PEOPLE OF INDIA
local and provincial characteristics. The series may now be
closed with some instances of the most general type of Indian
proverbs, those which are concerned with the caste system as
a whole and illustrate the extent of its influence. Proverbs of
this kind are not numerous, and one would gladly have more
of them, for they breathe a tolerant spirit which contrasts
pleasantly with the spiteful malevolence of some of the rural
portraits.
The authority of caste is of course uncompromisingly
asserted. " When plates are interchanged," that is to say, when
members of different castes intermarry, is a proverb of the
impossible. " The high-born man mourns the loss of his caste
as he would the loss of his nose," and " The caste killeth and the
caste maketh alive," seem to refer to the vital issues involved
in the decisions of caste tribunals which may make or mar the
lives of those who come before them. In view of these grave
possibilities, the discreet advice is given, " Having drunk water
from his hands, it is foolish to ask about his caste." To take
water from low-caste people is to incur ceremonial pollution,
entailing expulsion from caste pending submission to a dis-
agreeable purificatory ritual and the payment of a heavy fine ;
the least said, therefore, the soonest mended. " A low-caste
man is hke a musk-rat, if you smell him you remember it."
" As the ore is like the mine, so a child is like its caste." " The
speech fits the caste as the peg fits the whole ; " the idea being
that you can tell a high-caste man by his refined language and
accent. " I have sold my limbs not my caste," says a servant to
his master when he is asked to do something derogatory to his
caste.
Along with these sayings affirming the supremacy of the
modern doctrine of the necessity and inviolability of caste,
we find others which seem to recall an earlier order of ideas
when castes were not so rigidly separated, when members of
different castes could intermarry, and when, within certain
limits, caste itself was regarded as a matter of personal merit
rather than of mere heredity. " Love laughs at caste distinctions."
" Caste springs from actions not from birth." " Castes may
differ; virtue is everywhere the same." "The Vaisyas and
Sudras must have come first, and it was from them that
Brahmans and Kshatriyas were made." "Though your caste
is low, your crime is none the less." " Every uncle says that
his caste is the best." In others again we hear the croaking
tone of the laudator temports acti to whom all change is a
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS 151
stumbling-block and a reproach. " The Hindu gods have fled
to Dwarka ; the Musalman saints to Mecca ; under British
rule the Dheds shove you about." The Dheds, as has been
explained above, are one of the scavenger castes of Bombay,
whose mere touch is pollution. " Nowadays money is caste."
" In old times men looked to caste when they married their
children, now they look only to money." "The Pandit reads
his Scriptures and the Mulla his Quran ; men make a thousand
shows yet find not God." " To the Hindu Ram is dear, to the
Musalman Rahim ; they hate with a deadly hatred but know
not the reason why."
No useful purpose would be served by attempting a com-
parative study of the Indian proverbs relating to caste and
the European proverbs regarding trades and professions.
Where the environment and the point of view differ so widely,
there is really little opening for comparison between the two
series of sayings. The Indian proverbs here collected stand
by themselves ; they centre round caste ; and caste, as elabo-
rated in India, is a unique phenomenon. It would be possible
to pick out frorii the mass of material a few parallels between
the shortcomings of tailors, barbers and shoemakers in Europe
and in India; but neither the contrasts nor the correspondences
are specially interesting, and two trades which figure largely
in European proverbial literature — those of the miller and the
baker — are conspicuous for their absence from the Indian
group of portraits. In the East people grind their own corn
and bake their own bread, and have no occasion to sharpen
their wit on the rascals who steal the one and adulterate the
other.
It is more instructive to note the difference between the
popular conception of the Brahman as illustrated by the pro-
verbs and the ideal picture of him presented in the Institutes
of Manu — the moral text-book of the orthodox Hindu. Here
we read how the Brahman is by right the lord of the whole
creation, since through his mouth the gods continually con-
sume the sacrificial viands and the manes receive the offerings
made for the benefit of the dead. Other mortals subsist
through his benevolence ; he can create new worlds and new
guardians of the world, and can deprive the gods of their
divine station. Though Brahmans employ themselves in all
sorts of mean occupations, they must be honoured in every
way; for each of them is a very great deity. To slay a
Brahman is mortal sin ; whoever threatens him with physical
IS2 PEOPLE OF INDIA
violence will wander for a hundred years in hell; the man
who seizes his property will feed in another world on the
leavings of vultures. Even the cardinal duty of veracity is
dispensed with in the interest of the Brahman. In the chapter
on witnesses the obligation to tell the truth is strongly insisted
on and is enforced by the most terrible penalties. " Naked
and shorn, tormented with hunger and thirst and deprived of
sight, shall the man who gives false evidence go with a pots-
herd to beg food at the door of his enemy." Yet it is also
written : " No crime, causing loss of caste, is committed by
swearing falsely to women the objects of one's desire, at
marriages, for the sake of fodder for a cow, or of fuel, and in
order to show favour to a Brahman." *
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF INDIAN PROVERBS.
Adams, Lieut.-Col. A. The Western Rajputana States, 2nd ed. London,
1900.
Chelakesavaraya Mudaliar, T. Parallel Proverbs, Tamil and English.
Madras, 1903.
Christian, J. Bihar Proverbs. London, 189 1.
Crooke, W. a Rural and Agricultural Glossary for the North-West
Provinces and Oudh. Calcutta, 1880.
Crooke, W. Tribes and Castes of the North-West Provinces and Oudh.
Calcutta, 1896.
Elliot, Sir H. M. Memoirs on the History, Folklore, and Distribution of the
Races of North-West India, ed. J. Beames, London, 1869.
Fallon, S. W. Hindustani English Dictionary. Benares, 1879.
Fallon, S. W. Dictionary of Hindustani Proverbs, ed. Sir R. Temple.
Benares, 1886.
Ganesh Narayan Deshpande. a Dictionary of Marathi Proverbs-
Poona, 1900.
Ganga Datt Upreti Pandit. Proverbs and Folklore of Ktanaun and
Garhwal. Lodiana, 1894.
Gangadhar Govind Sapkar. Marathi Proverbs. Poona, 1872.
Gray, J. Ancient Proverbs from the Burmese. London, 1886.
Grierson, G. A. Bihar Peasant Life. Calcutta, 1885.
Gurdon, Capt. p. R. Some Assamese Proverbs. Shillong, 1896.
Ibeetson, D. C. J. Pimjab Ethnography. Calcutta, 1883.
Ishuree Dass. Doinestic Manners and Customs of the Hindus of Northern
India. Benares, 1866.
Jamjetjee Petit. Collection of Gujarati Proverbs. Bombay.
Jensen, Rev. H. A Classified Collection of Tamil Proverbs. Madras,
1897.
Lal BiHARl Day. Bengal Peasant Life. London, 1878.
Lawrence, Sir W. R. The Valley of Kashmir. London, 1895.
Long, Rev. J. Eastern Proverbs and Emblems. London, 188 1.
* The Laws of Mann translated by G. Biihler, I, 93, 95, loi ; IV., 165 ; VIII., 93, 112 ;
IX., 23s, 315, 319; XL, 26.
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS 153
Lyall, J. B. Report on the Land Revenue Settlement of the Kangra District,
Ptmjab. Lahore, 1865-72.
Maconachie, J. R. Agricultural Proverbs of the Panjab. Lahore, 1890.
Manwaring, Rev. A. Marathi Proverbs, collected and translated. Oxford,
l899._ _
Narayan Damodar Chhatre. Marathi Practical Proverbs. Poona, 1871.
Natesa Sastri, Pandit. Familiar Tamil Proverbs.
Nesfield, J. C. A Brief View of the Caste System of the North-West
Provinces and Oudh. Allahabad, 1885.
Percival, p. Tamil Proverbs, with their English Translation, 3rd ed.
Madras, 1874.
Prabodh Prakas Sen Gupta. Dictionary of Proverbs. Calcutta, 1899.
Purser, W. E. and Fanshawb, H. C. Settlement Report of the District of
Rohtak. Lahore, 1880.
Ravipati Guruvaya Guru. A Collection of Telugu Proverbs, translated by
Capt. M. W. Carr. Madras, 1868.
ROCHIRAM Gajumal. Handbook of Sindhi Proverbs. Karachi, 1895.
Tamil Sayings and Proverbs on Agriculture. Madras.
Upendro Krishna Bonerjea. Handbook of Proverbs, English and Bengali.
Calcutta, 1 89 1.
Wilson, J, Grammar of Westerti Panjabi. Lahore, 1898.
CHAPTER IV
CASTE AND MARRIAGE
Das Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan.
Goethe. Faus( II.
Nous ne ddpendons point des constitutions ni des chartes, mais des instincts
et des mceurs.
Anatole France.
Among the various causes which contribute to the growth of
a race or the making of a nation by far the most effective and
persistent is the/ws conniihii — the body of rules and conventions
governing intermarriage. The influence of these rules penetrates
every family; it abides from generation to generation, and gathers
force as time goes on. The more eccentric the system, the
more marked are the consequences which it tends to produce.
With men, as with animals, artificial selection is more potent
and works more rapidly than natural selection. In no depart-
ment of life is the contrast sharper between the East and
Contrasts between ^^e West, the Stationary and the progressive
India and societies, the races of India and the nations
Europe. ^j- gyj-Qpe. The first point which strikes an
observer is the almost universal prevalence of the married
state. In Europe sentiment and prudence hold divided sway,
and the tendency on the whole is rather towards a decline in
the number of marriages. In India neither of these motives
comes prominently into play. Religion on the other hand,
which in the West makes in the main for celibacy, throws its
weight in India almost wholly into the other scale. A Hindu
man must marry and beget children to perform his funeral
rites, lest his spirit wander uneasily in the waste places of the
earth. If a high-class Hindu maiden is unmarried at puberty,
her condition brings social obloquy on her family, and on a
strict reading of certain texts entails retrospective damnation
on three generations of ancestors. But the general obligation
CASTE AND MARRIAGE iss
to marry is hampered by numerous conditions. In the West
the field from which a man can choose his wife is practically
unlimited. The restrictions based on consanguinity are few,
and all but an insignificant number of marriages are determined
by the free choice of persons who have attained physical
maturity, and believe that they know their own minds. In
India, throughout the ever widening area dominated by Hindu
tradition or influence, one set of rules contracts the circle
within which a man must marry; another set artificially
expands the circle within which he may not marry; a third
series of conventions imposes special disabilities on the
marriage of women. A fourth injunction, not as yet universal
but constantly gaining ground, forbids a widow to marry
again. Under the regime of infant marriage, wedded life too
often commences before physical maturity has set in, and the
children thus united make their first acquaintance when they
are already husband and wife. Polygamy tempered by poverty,
and two forms of polyandry, both tending to disappear under
the influence of popular disapproval, complete the series of
contrasts between Indian and European marriage customs.
We shall consider later on how far the dry figures of the
census bear witness to the far-reaching consequences of these
restrictions on the natural tendencies of the human race. But
before examining the statistics it will be of interest to describe
more fully the customs alluded to above. Two of these,
endogamy and exogamy, are common to all primitive societies.
Polyandry and polygamy are found in several societies which
are not primitive. Infant marriage, and the prohibition of
widow remarriage are, I believe, peculiar to India.* Hyper-
gamy, though it is met with in other countries, is probably
more fully developed in India than anywhere else in the
world. In describing these rules it is impossible to avoid
constant reference to the social groups — tribes, castes and the
like — by which their operation is determined. Marriage is the
most prominent factor in the caste system, and the customs
which regulate marriage can only be described in terms of
caste or of some tribal unit which closely resembles a caste or
represents a stage in the process by which caste has been
evolved. The only people to whom this remark does not
apply are the Burmese and other races of further India. The
* [The custom of infant marriage and the prohibition of remarriage of widows prevail in
other countries besides India (E. Westermarclc, The History of Human Marriage, 1891,
p. 213 et seq., 127.)]
iS6 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Muhammadans in most parts of India have been aiTected in
various degrees by the example of Hindu marriage usage ;
and Indian Christians have not always escaped the same
pervading influence.
The terms endogamy and exogamy— passablemeni barbares
^ as M. Senart has called them— were intro-
duced more than forty years ago by the late
Mr. J. F. McLennan in his well-known essay on Primitive
Marriage. The laws governing marriage which these terms
denote were then unnamed. Mr. McLennan was, I believe,
the first to draw attention to them, and the names devised
by him have been adopted by all who have since written on
the subject. Endogamy, or " marrying in," is the custom which
forbids the members of a particular social group to marry any
one who is not a member of the group. An endogamous divi-
sion, therefore, is a group within which its members must
marry. The following types of endogamous divisions may be
distinguished. The enumeration is probably not exhaustive,
but it will serve to illustrate the lines on which the principle of
endogamy works in India : —
I. Ethnic groups consisting of compact tribes like the
Indo-Aryan Rajputs of Rajputana and the Dravidian
Mundas, Oraons and Santals of Chutia Nagpur, and
also including tribes, like the Bhumij, who have
adopted Hinduism and transformed themselves into
a caste. In the case of the latter, the assumption of a
common origin is borne out by what is known of the
history and affinities of the tribe, but after having
become a caste, its members set to work to strip
themselves of all customs likely to betray their true
descent. At the same time the substantial landholders,
if there are any among the tribe, usually break oif
from the rest and set up as Rajputs, a designation
which outside of Rajputana proper does not neces-
sarily imply any race distinction, and frequently means
nothing more than that the people using it have or
claim to have proprietary rights in land. The local
Raja of the Bhumij country pretends to be some kind
of Rajput, and the smaller landholders of the tribe
tend to follow his example. The change of style does
not take long to effect, and it is no one's business
to challenge its validity. I have known a man who
habitually posed as a Surajbansi Rajput file in court
CASTE AND MARRIAGE iS7
and Jay immense stress upon a document in which
his grandfather wrote himself down a Bhumij. His
composure was not materially disturbed when the
anomaly was pointed out to him.
II. Linguistic or Provincial groups, such as Tamil, Telugu,
Bengali, Oriya, and Paschima or Bihari Brahmans.
These classes are very large, and include whole castes
which in their turn are broken up into endogamous
sub-castes. Such groups arise partly from the fiction
which assumes that men who live in a different part of
the country and speak a different language must be of
a different race, and probably also in some measure
from the inclusion of different stocks under a single
caste-name. It can hardly be doubted, for example,
that the large and miscellaneous groups included
under the name Brahman have been recruited to
some extent from the local priests of tribes which
adopted Hinduism.
III. Territorial or Local groups not corresponding to any
distinction of language, such as the Rarhi and
Barendra Brahmans, the Uttariya and Dakshini (north
and south of the Ganges) Doms of Bihar, the Tamaria
and Sikharbhumi Bhumij of Manbhum, and numerous
others. It is curious to observe that in some cases
these groups are called after ancient territorial
divisions, such as Rarh, Barendra, Sikharbhum, etc.,
which appear on no map, and the names of which
may possibly throw some light upon the early history
of India.*
IV. Functional or Occupational groups, such as the Mecho and
Halia or Helo sub-castes of Kaibartta, of whom the
former sell fish, while the latter, who have now given
themselves brevet rank as .Mahishyas, confine them-
selves to cultivation ; and the Dulia, Machhua, and
Matial sub-castes of Bagdis who are distinguished
respectively by carrying palanquins, fishing, and
labouring as tank-diggers and earth-workers. Writing
about the Halia sub-caste of Kaibartta in 1891, I ven-
tured on the conjecture that " this sub-caste will rise
in social estimation and will altogether sink the
* The position of most of these ancient territorial divisions is now fairly well known.
Amongst recent writers on the subject may be mentioned Mr. Pargiter, late of the Indian
Civil Service, and Maharoahopadhyaya Hara Prasad Sastri,
158 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Kaibartta." The forecast has come true. They now
call themselves Mahishyas, a name unheard of ten
years ago, and pose as a distinct caste. The claim
has not yet been fully recognized, but that is merely
a question of time and importunity.*
V. Sectarian groups' like the Bishnois of Northern India,
and the Lingayats of Bombay. These were originally
religious sects which have now closed their ranks to
outsiders and marry only among themselves. As a
rule, however, groups based upon religious differences
within the range of Hinduism do not tend to become
endogamous, and the evolution of a caste from a sect
is a comparatively rare phenomenon.
VI. Social groups marked off by abstaining from or practising
some particular social or ceremonial usage. Thus the
Sagahut sub-caste of Sunris (traders and liquor sellers)
in Bihar allow their widows to re-marry by the maimed
rite of sagdi, while another sub-caste of Sunris forbid
widow marriage, and designate themselves biydhut,
" the married one," from biydh, the full-blown wedding
ceremony which no woman can go through twice.
In theory all the members of each of the numerous groups
included in these classes are regarded as forming a body of
kindred, though in any particular instance their pedigree may
be extremely obscure. In the first or ethnic class, the racial tie
which binds the members together and distinguishes them
from other tribes forming part of the same class is palpable
and acknowledged, and various legends are current which
purport to account for it. In the other classes the tendency
towards sub-division, which is inherent in Indian society, seems
to have been set in motion by the fiction that men who speak
a different language, who dwell in a different district, who
worship different gods, who observe different social customs,
who follow a different profession, or practice the same profes-
sion in a slightly different way, must be of a fundamentally
different race. Usually, and in the case of sub-castes invariably,
the fact is that there is no appreciable difference of blood
between the newly-formed group and the larger aggregate from
which it has broken off.
For reasons which need not be entered upon here, complete
statistics of these countless divisions are never likely to be
♦ See p. Il8, supra,
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 159
available. But many of them are known to be exceedingly
small, and even the larger ones, when distributed over a large
area of country, may be so scantily represented in a given
locality that the number of possible marriages open to their
members must be inconveniently restricted.
The disintegrating influence of the constant creation of
separate connubial groups has not escaped the notice of Indian
social reformers. In an able paper on the fusion of sub-castes
in India Lala Baijnath Lai, Judge of the Court of Small Causes
in Agra, has pointed out the harm which they do " physically
by narrowing the circle of selection in marriage, intellectually
by cramping the energies, and morally by destroying mutual
self-confidence and habits of co-operation." The writer goes
on to propose that social reformers should use their influence
" to make those sub-sections of a caste which inter-dine (sic)
also intermarry." The suggestion is sound in itself and is put
forward with conspicuous moderation. Its author wisely
refrains from advocating intermarriage between members of
different castes, and lays stress on the expediency of proceeding
gradually and commencing with the smallest groups. But
clearly his plan will only meet those cases where the Jus convivii
is wider than the jus connubii. Ordinarily, no doubt, when
people will not eat together, still less will they intermarry.
But this is not always the case. Among the Agarwals, for
instance, members of different religious sects intermarry but
do not eat together. At marriage the wife is formally admitted
into her husband's sect, and must in future have her food
cooked separately when she stays with her own people. A
well-known proverb says of the Kanaujia Brahmans of the
United Provinces — Tin Kanaujia terah chulhd, "Three Kanaujias
want thirteen kitchens," implying that their notions on the
subject of ceremonial purity are so extreme that they will
hardly eat even with their nearest relations. Of these people
Lala Baijnath remarks that " the smallness of their various
clans causes the greatest difficulty in obtaining husbands for
girls except on payment of extortionate sums of money." Mr.
Burn, however, informs me that, although their usages are not
sufficiently defined to be capable of clear description, the
groups which cannot eat together are much smaller than those
which cannot intermarry. In both cases, therefore, the change
suggested would aggravate the very evil which it is intended
to cure. Both serve to illustrate the diversity and intricacy of
social usage in Pndia and the dangers which beset the path of
i6o PEOPLE OF INDIA
any one who seeks to introduce what at first sight may seem to
be a most obvious reform.
An interesting case has recently been published by Mr.
Burn, tending to show how the most modern and enlightened
movements, so far from promoting the consolidation of social
groups, merely encourage the instinct of separation which is
the governing principle of the caste system. Among the
mercantile castes of the United Provinces are two large groups
known as Barahseni and Chauseni, the, members of which
do not intermarry. The former are shop-keepers and con-
fectioners, and pride themselves on not allowing widows to
marry again. The Chauseni are usually regarded as an ille-
gitimate or outcast branch of the Barahseni, but they are
endeavouring to improve their status and, as a means to that
end, an important section of them " has refused to recognize
widow marriage, and even the rest of the group look on the
practice with growing disfavour." Some members of the
Barahseni community have recently joined the modern re-
formers of the Arya Samaj, " and a marriage was lately cele-
brated between a Barahseni man and a widow of the same
group. When the project was announced, the orthodox Hindus
held a meeting and endeavoured to stop further proceedings,
but without success. Two days - after the marriage another
meeting was held, and the married couple and those who aided
them were solemnly excommunicated. A printed notice has
been widely circulated directing all Barahsenis to avoid dining,
marrying, drinking, or holding any communication with those
outcasted. A large feast was subsequently held, at which
about 4,000 orthodox Barahsenis were present, but to which
none of the guilty members were invited. The feeling has
gone so far that some men whose sons had previously married
into families now outcasted have recalled their daughters-in-
law, and refuse to let them visit their parents. Others have
turned their own daughters out of their houses as they are
married to outcasts." *
These proceedings give rise to the awkward question, what
is to become of all the people thus expelled from their own
society. The Chausenis will not receive them, because they
have offended against a rule which the Chausenis themselves
are beginning to observe. Nor would the outcasts consent
to enter the lower group, since they insist on the entire legality
of the marriages which have been contracted. The result is
* y. A. S. B., Vol. I., No. 10, 1905.
CASTE AND MARRIAGE i6i
that at present they belong to no caste at all, and, arguing from
analogy, it seems probable that they may be driven to set up a
new caste of their own.
Exogamy, or " marrying out," is the custom which forbids
the members of a particular social group, usually supposed to
be descended from a common ancestor, or to be associated with
a certain locality, to marry any one who is a member of the
same group. An exogamous division, therefore, is a group
outside of which its members must marry.
The following classes of exogamous divi- „
r J • T J- Exogamy.
sions are found m India : —
I. Totemistic, being the names of animals, plants, etc., such
as Hansda, wild goose, Hemron, betel palm. A man
of the Hansda division may not marry a woman of
that division, and so on. These totemistic divisions
are confined for the most part to tribes and castes of
Dravidian descent.
II. Eponymous, the ancestor who gives his name to the
group being either a Vedic saint (as with the Brah-
mans and the castes who imitate them), or a chief of
comparatively modern date, as with the Rajputs and
others.
III. Territorial, referring either to some very early settle-
ment of a section or to the birthplace of its founder ;
prevalent among the Rajputs and the trading castes
supposed to be allied with them, and found also
among the Kandhs of Orissa and the Nagas of
Assam in a very primitive form, the sept there
residing in the local area whose name it bears.*
IV. Local, communal, or family sections of small size and
comparatively recent origin.
V. Titular, or nickname groups referring to some personal
peculiarity or adventure of the founder of the sept,
or to some office which he is supposed to have held.
Besides these we also find castes which have no sections of
any kind, or, which comes to the same thing, have only one
section and habitually marry within it, and simply reckon pro-
hibited degrees in much the same way as we do ourselves.
We have seen that endogamy restricts intermarriage in one
direction by creating a number of artificially small groups
within which people must marry. Exogamy brings about the
same result by artificially enlarging the circle within which
[* T. C. Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur, 1911, p. 71.]
R, PI II
i62 PEOPLE OF INDIA
they may not marry. Here again no complete statistics are
available. But in certain proceedings held in Madras in con-
nection with the classification of the Kamalakar caste of immi-
grants into Tanjore from the Deccan, who call themselves
Saurashtra Brahmans, it was stated that each of their exo-
gamous divisions contained about 2,000 persons. A somewhat
similar result may be arrived at by calculation for the sub-
castes of Brahmans in Bombay. Compare these figures with
the largest number of persons that can be imagined to be
excluded by our own table of prohibited degrees and the
contrast is sufficiently striking. The calculation, however,
understates the case. As has often been pointed out, exogamy
is one-sided in its operation. In no case may a man marry
into his own group, but the name of the group goes by the
male side, and consequently, so far as the rule of exogamy is con-
cerned, there is nothing to prevent him from marrying his
sister's daughter, his maternal aunt, or even his maternal grand-
mother.* Alliances of this kind are barred by a separate set
of rules, which usually overlap the exogamous rule to some
extent. Marriage with any person descended in a direct line
from the same parents is universally forbidden. In order to
simplify the calculation of collateral relationship — a compli-
cated business which severely taxes the rural intellect— the
following formula is in use throughout Biha.r -.-—Chachera,
mameru, phuphera, musera, ye char ndtd bachdke shadi hoti hai,
"the line of paternal uncle, maternal uncle, paternal aunt,
maternal aunt, these four relationships are to be avoided in
marriage." Here the first point to notice is that in the first
generation the whole of the paternal uncle's descendants, both
male and female, are excluded by the rule prohibiting marriage
within the section. In the second and subsequent generations
agnates are barred, but descendants through females are not.
For the paternal uncle's daughters must have married out of
the section, so that their children must belong to some other
section, and thus second cousins are able to marry. Another
[* In Southern India cousin marriage is common (W. H. R. Rivers, "The Marriage of cousins
in India," journal Royal Asiatic Society, July, 1907, p. 611 et seq.). "It is a prevalent
custom throughout Southern India that a girl's father's sister's son has the first right to her
hand in marriage. The Malayalam word for son-in-law (maru makan) means nephew. If a
stranger should marry a girl, he is also called nephew. But the unmarried nephew, having
the first admitted right to the girl, must be paid eight annas, or two fanams, before he will
allow her to be taken away" (E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Soutkerji India, 1909,
vol. vii., p. 60 ; cf. J. G. Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, 1910, vol. ii., p. 331 et seq.;
Census Report, Central Provinces, ign, vol. i., p. 134). For cross-cousin marriage among
Muhammadans in Northern India, see Census Report, Kashmir, 1911, vol. i., p. 139.]
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 163
point is tiiat the formula does not state the number of genera-
tions to which the prohibition extends, and that different castes
supply this omission in different ways. The Dravidian races
generally incline to laxity. The Santals, for example, in the
Santal Parganas, are said to make up for their sweeping pro-
hibition on the father's side by allowing very near alliances on
the mother's side — a fact well illustrated in their proverb " No
man heeds a cow-track, or regards his mother's sept." Many
castes, again, exclude a smaller number of generations on the
female side, while others profess to prohibit intermarriage
so long as any relationship, however remote, can be traced
between the parties.
Hypergamy, or " marrying up," * is the custom which
forbids a woman of a particular group to ^
^ or Hypergamy.
marry a man of a group lower than her own
in social standing, and compels her to marry in a group equal
or superior in rank. A hypergamous division, therefore, is a
group forming part of a series governed by the foregoing rule.
The men of the division can marry in it or below it ; the women
can marry in it or above it.
The following are instances of hypergamous divisions : —
(a) The four original classes (varnas) as depicted in the
somewhat contradictory utterances of the law books,
which seem to deal with a period of transition when
caste was being gradually evolved out of a series of
hypergamous classes. Thus one set of passages in
Manu, Baudhayana, Vishnu and Narada allows a
Brahman to marry in succession a woman of each of
the four castes; while other texts from the same
authorities forbid him to marry a Sudra woman.
According to Baudhayana, Gautama, and Usanas
marriages in which the wife was only one grade
below the husband are freely admissible and the
children take the rank of the father, so that the son of
a Vaisya by a Sudra woman was counted a Vaisya.t
On the other hand, all authorities agree in repro-
bating marriages between men of lower classes and
women of higher.
* This is what the term was intended by its inventor to mean. He alone is responsible for
the etymology. [Sir D. Ibbetson, Census Report, Punjab, 1881, vol. i., p. 356.]
[t Manu, Laws, iii., 12-13, i". 85-87, with the references quoted by G. Biihler, Sacred
Book 0/ the East, xxv,, 1886, pp. 77, 342. A. A. Macdonell, A. H. Keith, Vedic Index
of Names and Subjects, 1913, i. 476.]
i64 PEOPLE OF INDIA
(b) The groups Kulin, Siddha-Srotriya, Sadhya-Srotriya,
and Kashta-Srotriya among the Rarhi Brahmans of
Bengal as organized by Ballal Sen. The rule was
that a man of the Kulin class could marry a woman
of his own class or of the two higher Srotriya
classes ; a Siddha-Srotriya could marry in his own
group or in the Sadhya group ; but the Sadhya and
Kashta-Srotriyas might take wives only within the
limits of their own classes. Conversely, women of
the Sadhya-Srotriya class could marry in their own
class or the two classes above them ; Siddha-Srotriya
women in their own class or in the Kulin class ;
while Kulin women at one end of the scale and
Kashta women at the other were restricted in their
choice of husbands to the Kulin and Kashta groups.
(c) Among the Marathas families belonging to groups
such as Kadam, Bande, Bhosle, Powar, Nimbalkar,
etc., whose ancestors rose to power during the
Maratha ascendancy, will not give their daughters in
marriage to Marathas of lower social position.* In
some cases intermarriage has been entirely broken
off; and the group is converting itself into a caste
which claims descent from the traditional Kshatriyas.
(d) A curious development of hypergamy has taken place of
recent years among the Pods, a cultivating and fishing
caste very numerous in the districts near Calcutta.
Those Pods who have taken to English education and
become clerks, pleaders, doctors, and the like, refuse
to give their daughters in marriage to their agri-
cultural and fishing-caste fellows though they still
condescend to take brides from the latter. The case
is closely parallel to that of the Mahisya Kaibarttas
mentioned above, and is of interest as exhibiting an
earlier stage in the process of caste-making. The
educated Pods, it will be observed, have not com-
pletely separated from the main body of their caste ;
they have merely set up for themselves a special
JUS connubii, the right of taking girls without giving
them in return, like the three higher classes in the
traditional Indian system. Their number being com-
paratively small, they probably have not women
[* This restriction is now being relaxed, Ethnological Survey, Central Provinces, Part IX.,
i9H, p. 127]
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 165
enough to meet their own needs. But this will right
itself in course of time, and they will then follow the
classical precedent of the twice-born classes and will
marry only within their own group. Later on they
will start a distinctive name, probably a pretentious
Sanskrit derivative, and will disclaim all connexion
with the Pods. They will then have become a caste
in the ordinary acceptation of the word, and in a
generation or two their humble origin will be
forgotten.
The examples given above show the custom of hypergamy
to be of great antiquity, and to prevail in India over a very
wide area at the present day. Its theoretical working is
perhaps best illustrated by the following diagram. Let X
'a a represent a caste divided into the three
^, ""■"------ hypergamous groups. A, B, and C.
^-III._" Within each group, the capital letters
c Zc stand for the marriageable men, and
the small letters for the marriageable women of the group.
The horizontal and diagonal lines connecting the capitals with
the small letters show what classes of men and women can
intermarry. It will be seen that a man of the A group can
marry a woman of his own or of the two lower groups; a man
of B can marry into B or C, while a man of C is confined to
his own class, and cannot marry a woman from either of the
classes above him. Conversely, a woman of the C class can
get a husband from A, B, or C, and a woman of the B class
from A or B ; but a woman of the A class
cannot find a husband outside of her own hypergamy.
group. Excluding polygamy and polyandry,
and supposing the women of each group to be evenly dis-
tributed among the groups they are entitled to marry into, the
result of the first series of marriages would be to leave two.
thirds of the women in the A group without husbands, and
two-thirds of the men in the C group without wives. Of
course in practice the system does not work in this mechanical
fashion. Husbands are at a premium in the upper groups and
become the object of vigorous competition ; the bride-price of
early usage disappears, and is replaced by the bridegroom-
price now paid among most of the higher castes in India.
The rich get their daughters married above their proper rank ;
poorer people are driven to reckless borrowing or, in the last
resort, to other means, if they would avoid the disgrace of
i66 PEOPLE OF INDIA
letting their daughters grow up unmarried. There are,
unhappily, several ways of redressing the unequal propor-
tions of the sexes and putting artificially straight what has
been artificially made crooked. One approved way is for the
parents to kill, or to make no attempt to keep alive, all female
infants except those for whom they can make sure of finding
husbands. This is what the Rajputs of Northern India used
to do until a law was passed making things unpleasant for
any village which could not show a respectable proportion of
girls. The practice seems to be as old as the Yajur Veda,
which speaks of female infants being exposed when born ;
while the remark in the Athafva Veda, that the birth of a
daughter is a calamity, may perhaps imply that then, as
now, infanticide was connected with the difficulty of getting
daughters suitably married.*
Another method is that of wholesale polygamy, such as
was practised by the Kulin Brahmans of Bengal a couple of
generations ago. Several middle-aged Kulins are known to
have had more than a hundred wives, and to have spent their
lives on a round of visits to their mothers-in-law. For each
wife they had received a handsome bridegroom-price, diminish-
ing in amount with the number of wives they had at the time
of the marriage; they made what "they could out of each
periodical visit ; and they asked no questions about the
children. Nearly forty years ago Babu Abhaya Chandra Das
described this scandalous state of things in a paper read
before the Dacca Institute. He said : " I know of two Kulins,
one of whom married about 60 wives, and the other had
upwards of 100 ; each of these men had a book in which he
entered the names of villages where he married as well as the
names of the fathers of the wives married. At the commence-
ment of the cold weather, each would start on his connubial
tour, if I may so express it, with his memo-book, and after
collecting money from each wife visited according to her
father's pecuniary circumstances, return home at the beginning
[* A. A. Macdonell, A History of Sanskrit Literature, 1900, p. 163. An interestin'^
attempt by the poorer classes in Western India to obviate the difficulty, under the system of
hypergamy, of finding husbands for their daughters, is reported among the Kunbis. Groups
of villages have been formed, the residents of which refuse to marry their girls to the wealthier
residents in towns. (Census Reports, Baroda, 1911, vol. i., p. 136 et seq. ; Bombay, igii,
vol. i., pp. 118 et seq., 200 et seq., 280.) A similar revolt against hypergamy is reported
among the Khalris and the Brahmans, who serve them, in the Panjab (H. A. Rose, Glossary
of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-Western Province, 1911, vol. ii., pp 126,
5I4).]
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 167
of the summer to spend the rest of the year in his village. It
is not infrequently the case that fathers and sons and husbands
and wives meet as. perfect strangers to one another, and
become overwhelmed with shame when their mutual relations
are known. I heard also of one case in which a Kulin, by
mistaking the name, visited the daughter of a certain Bangsaj,
who was glad to receive his supposed son-in-law, but a few
days afterwards, the real son-in-law paid his visit, and the
mistake was then found out to the utter amazement of
the father" — and, one would think, to the consternation of
the daughter.
The system, I am informed, has even now not wholly died
out, but it prevails on a less outrageous scale; a connubial
touring season is not so much in evidence ; and educated
opinion condemns it forcibly. According to a recent writer,*
however, "it is still in full force in East Bengal, where such
an abominable practice of having many wives still exists."
And an actual case was mentioned to me recently of a Kulin
Brahman living in the neighbourhood of Calcutta who has
more than fifty wives, duly entered in a register, whom he
visits, for a consideration, during the cold weather. The same
writer gives an interesting account of a modern development
of the principle of hypergamy which has arisen- from the
demand for graduate husbands in the marriage market of
Bengal.
" Education instead of stifling or mitigating the baneful
effects of Kulinism has gone in a horrible degree to strengthen
them In fact, the University standard has become a more
powerful engine of oppression for the girl's father than the
so-called Ballali Kulinism. A Bachelor of Arts, if he is also
a bachelor in life, even if he is a homeless pauper living upon
his friends' bounty, and be he a Kulin or a Maulik or Achal,
must have, besides ' a wingless nymph,' as goes the Bengali
adage, for his spouse adorned with jewelry and gold ornaments
from head to foot, a cash demand of at least Rs. 4000, besides
the personal dower for the bridegroom's embellishment called
barahharan, from a girl's father of ordinary means, say a
Deputy Magistrate or a Sub-Judge. If the father has the
misfortune to possess a girl of somewhat dark complexion
* The Brahmans and Kayasthas of Bengal, by Babu Girindranath Dutt, B.A., m.r.a.s.,
M.S.A., Madras, 1906 [for recent instances of Kulin polygamy see Census Report, Bengal,
191 1, vol. i., p. 327].
i68 PEOPLE OF INDIA
or in any way ugly or deformed, the demand may run up to
Rs. 15,000. Add to this the numerous other items of expendi-
ture to be incurred by the bride's father on, before, and after
the marriage, and the result is simply ruinous to him, to say the
least. We have personal knowledge of an incident where
the bridegroom's party, composed of educated men and headed
by an M.A., a renowned professor of a Governmept College,
had demanded after the marriage from the bride's father, who
had already paid double the demand contracted, a blackmail
which he agreeably termed baraydtramaryada (honorarium to
bridegroom's party) for each member, whether Kulins or
Mauliks, composing the bridegroom's party, for partaking food
in the bride's house. The most ridiculous feature in the whole
affair was that the names of the bridegroom, his brother and
his father, who had already received a handsome honorarium
for his position as the boy's father, were also enlisted in this
general list of bridegroom's party to exact double honorarium.
The bride's father having refused to comply with this unjust
demand as an insult, innovation and contrary to family custom,
he was asked to remit this demand immediately by telegraphic
money-order on pain of having his little girl detained in a
forlorn and far-off country in case of default. In the majority
of cases, the bridegroom's party now demands the whole
amount in cash in advance, and many even stoop to the mean-
ness of demanding a registered document binding the bride's
father in a contract so that he may not defraud hereafter.
The least causes of dissatisfaction, however frivolous (and
these could be easily picked up), subject the poor little girl-
wife to all sorts of ill-treatment in her strange father-in-law's
house, so long as she does not grow old enough to assert her
independence there. Threats to remarry the bridegroom at
once if the bride's party would not soon suitably make amends
for such frivolous omissions and commissions are also in some
cases realized to wreak vengeance. The miserable position
of a girl's father is very well depicted in the Bengali adages
which say that ' he has hanging over his head a chain of shoes
to strike him at every turn,' and that 'bride's father is soil
and bridegroom's father is peg' {meyer bap mdti chheler bap
khunti). In view of the increasing difficulties in daughters'
marriages which are being occasioned in consequence of the
daily rising and multiplicity of the items of demand, thought-
ful men have already rightly apprehended, that if matters
go on in this stride, there would soon be a time when girls'
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 169
fathers would be compelled to have recourse to secret
infanticide."*
Mr. Dutt's view of the matter is confirmed by a remarkable
speech delivered in Bengali by the Hon'ble Mr. Justice Mittra
of the Calcutta High Court and published in the Kayasth
Patrika.
" Look at the present situation. I have heard that in Raj-
putana daughters used to be killed as soon as they were born,
because bridegrooms could not be had easily. In these
disastrous days of ours, in our country also, in order to rid
ourselves of the troubles of a daughter's marriage, we might
also be tempted to do the same at her birth. Now, as it is,
the faces of the parents grow lean as soon as a girl is born to
them. The birth of a daughter is considered to be the penalty
of sins committed in a former state of existence. It is need-
less to dwell on the present state of Hindu society, as it is too
well known. Led by avarice or vanity, though many shut
their eyes and raise the plea that there is nothing wrong in
' committing highway robbery on a thief,' they fully under-
stand what a disaster has been the effect. Hundreds of girls'
fathers have to sell or mortgage their residential houses ;
thousands of girl-wives have to suffer in patience maltreatment
like prisoners under their fathers-in-laws' roofs in consequence
of their fathers' inability to meet unjust demands. Placed in a
strange house for the first time, the poor girl-wives sorely feel
the absence of their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters ;
they are constantly tormented by the abusive epithets heaped
on their parents and they are themselves subjected to intoler-
able personal ill-usage. These circumstances drive us to the
conclusion that it would be far better to kill girls as soon as
they are born or to keep them in life-long maidenhood regard-
less of religion and morality. «****»» A boy's father, who
has not even a house of his own and lives in a hired lodging
where he has brought up his son, now aspires to become the
possessor of a two-storied house and Govt. Promissory paper
on his son's marriage. Perhaps he is over head and ears in
debt and he intends to liquidate that by his son's marriage.
He wants to send his son to England to become a Civilian,
[* ' ' Educational qualifications put up the price of a bridegroom, not so much because of
any belief in education as an advantage per se, but because the bridegroom is more likely
to get remunerative employment. The possession of a degree may even change the whole
situation and cause a bridegroom-price to be paid instead of a bride-price." Instances are
given of the inonstrous demands made by the parents of sons thus qualified. (Census Report,
Bengal, 191 1, vol. i., p. 316.)]
170 PEOPLE OF INDIA
he has no money, so he must get it by his son's marriage.
« « ♦ » * Punishments for theft and robbery are provided
in the Indian Penal Code, but there is no provision in it for
punishing such a father, although his offence is just as bad, and
because there is no such provision, he can ruin the girl's father
with absolute impunity."
These bitter complaints relate to the state of things among
the Dakhin-Rarhi sub caste of Kayasths in Bengal. But they
are not confined to that sub-caste. A case has been brought
to my notice which shows that the Uttar-Rarhi Kayasths are
involved in similar difficulties arising out of the rule of hyper-
gamy. A gentleman belonging to the Kulin sub-division of
this sub-caste had two daughters. For the elder he was
unable to find a Kulin husband, so he married her to a Maulik,
an offence for which the community made him pay a heavy
fine. Shortly before his death, he managed, after much haggling,
to arrange a marriage for the second girl with a Kulin boy of
suitable pedigree, for whom he had to pay a bridegroom price
of Rs. looo, which was deposited with one of the boy's relatives
under an agreement that it should be spent on his education.
The girl was married when she was nine years old, her
husband being then fourteen, but she remained with her own
family until she had completed her twelfth year, the statutory
age for cohabitation. Soon after she joined her husband it
came out that his people had made away with the Rs. looo,
and they demanded from the girl's brother, a clerk on a small
salary, a regular payment of Rs. lo a month for the education
of her husband, who had just passed the Matriculation exami-
nation of the Calcutta University. When the brother protested
his inability to meet this unreasonable demand, the mother-in-
law, following the example of Mr. Wackford Squeers, repeatedly
beat the helpless child-wife so severely that she fainted from
pain. Fortunately the girl had been taught to write and she
managed to post a letter describing her sufferings, whereupon
a stalwart relative intervened and took her away by force.
She is now with her own people, and I understand that they
intend to keep her until she is big enough to bid defiance to
her mother-in-law.
It seems at first sight surprising that two highly cultivated
representatives of the chief literate caste in the most advanced
province in India should gravely refer to female infanticide as a
solution of matrimonial difficulties arising from a demand for
English education which is itself hardly two generations old.
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 171
Nor is it less remarkable to find the primitive belief that a girl
unmarried at puberty is a disgrace to her family, and an offence
against religion, surviving in undiminished force side by side
with vigorous competition for the modern luxury of a graduate
bridegroom. But so long as these conditions prevail, the
danger of a reversion to barbarous usages, such as the writers
quoted above apprehend, cannot be wholly excluded. The truth
of course is — and the sooner it is realized the better — that the
development of the literate classes in modern India has pro-
ceeded on irregular and one-sided lines. Intellectual and
political ideals have assumed undue prominence, while the
social and moral reforms without which no wholesome national
life is possible have been thrust into the background. History
affords no warrant for the belief that the enthusiasm of
nationality can be kindled in sordid and degenerate surround-
ings. Wherever that sentiment has displayed any real vitality,
it has been fostered and stimulated by the influence of the women
of the race. A society which accepts intellectual inanition and
moral stagnation as the natural condition of its womankind can-
not hope to develop the higher qualities of courage, devotion,
and self-sacrifice which go to the making of nations.
The voluminous literature relating to female infanticide in
India contains many indications that where the practice is not
merely sporadic, resulting from the pressure of starvation, but
has hardened into a recognized usage, it may be traced to the
operation of two distinct causes. In certain stages of tribal
society, the practice of killing females seems to be connected
with the rule of exogamy. The late Mr. J. F. McLennan ob-
served long ago that the two usages often existed side by
side. In the theory of exogamy put forward in his essay on
Primitive Marriage, he argued that female
■ r .• ■ 1 i-ju j'iuj remale infanticide
inianticide as practised by savages disturbed ^^^^ exogamy.
the balance of the sexes and drove men to
capture their wives from other tribes — a custom which in course
of time resolved itself into the systematic observance of exogamy.
This view was open to the obvious rejoinder that if all tribes
killed their female infants at an equal rate, there would soon be
no women to capture, and the race would die out. Even with-
out pressing this point, it was difficult to see why primitive
man should prefer the dangerous and inconvenient process of
capturing a wife from a hostile tribe to the simpler method of
marrying a girl belonging to his own local community. Given,
however, an adequate cause inducing people to practise
172 PEOPLE OF INDIA
exogamy — a cause as effective as the influence of natural
selection would unquestionably be— and it becomes easy to
understand that in certain states of society a tendency to female
infanticide would be a natural consequence, not as McLennan
supposed a cause, of the custom of exogamy. For if men were
restrained by inexorable usage from marrying the girls born in
the sept or local group of blood kindred, the temptation to kill
these bouches inutiles would probably be very strong. Not only
would girls be useless to the men of the tribe as wives, but the
more of them there were, the more would the tribe be preyed
upon by neighbours in quest of wives. As a matter of fact, this
was very much the view that the Khonds took of the question.
In 1842 they told Major Macpherson in so many words that it
was better to destroy girls in their infancy than to allow them
to grow up and become causes of strife afterwards.* I am in-
debted to the late Sir John Edgar, k.c.i.e., c.s.i., for a parallel
instance from the Nagas with whom, as with the Khonds, the
local exogaraous clan is the unit of tribal society. It seems that
on a tour through the Naga country, Colonel McCuUoch,
Political Agent for Manipur, came across a village which struck
him as remarkably destitute of female children. On making
inquiries he found that there was not a single girl in the place,
for the simple reason that the people killed all that were born
in order to save themselves from the annoyance of being harried
by wife-hunting parties from -a stronger clan. Colonel
McCuUoch got hold of the mothers, and managed to induce
them to spare their girls in future, on the understanding that
their neighbours should stop raiding and adopt a more peace-
able method of wooing. By a judicious mixture of threats and
persuasion, the other clan was led to agree to the arrangement,
and many years after, while staying in Manipur, Sir John
Edgar was present, when a troop of Naga girls from the
weaker group paid a visit of ceremony to Colonel McCuUoch,
bearing an offering of cloth of their own weaving in token of
their gratitude to the man who had saved their lives.t
[* S. C. Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India,, 1865, p. 132 et seq. The super-
stition reported from Bengal, that one of the causes of female infanticide among the Khonds
was the belief that the souls of girl children killed in this way would not be born again, and
hence that the number of female children would decrease, does not seem to prevail among
the tribe in the Central Provinces or Bengal. (Census Report, Central Provinces, 1911,
vol. i., p. 160 ; Id. Bengal, 191 1, vol. i., p. 330.)]
[t T. C. Hodson i^Naga Tribes of Manipur, 191 1, p. 98, note) discredits the existence of
female infanticide among Nagas at the present day. It certainly prevailed in comparatively
recent times. (Census Report, Assam, 1891, p. 120, note.)]
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 173
Instances ot this sort, vouched for by competent observers
and drawn from tribes dwelling so far apart and belonging to
such widely different stocks as the Dravidian Khonds of Orissa
and the Mongoloid Nagas of Assam, maybe regarded as crucial
in their bearing on the question of the relation of female
infanticide to the custom of exogamy. They seem to show that
the practice of killing female infants is a consequence, not a
cause, and assuredly not the cause, of the rule that a man may
not marry a woman of his own tribe. This consequence, more-
over, ensues only so long as society is in a savage state ; and
tends to die out, as it has died out among both Khonds and
Nagas, directly a regime of violence is succeeded by a regime of
law. As soon as this change has been effected, the value of
women tends to rise. They become a saleable commodity,
which neighbouring tribes will buy with a price, and the in-
ducement to kill them in infancy ceases to exist. In short, savage
infanticide is an incident of the primitive struggle for bare
existence which disappears when the severity of the struggle is
mitigated by peace.
There is, however, another form of infanticide, which is
connected not with exogamy but with hyper-
j , . , • 4.„ u„ f ,11 Female infanticide
gamy, and which requires to be carefully and hypergamy.
distinguished from the savage type. Given a
tribe like the Rajputs of Northern India, divided into a number
of exogamous septs, and strongly impressed with the idea of
purity of blood and the importance of correct ceremonial obser-
vances, it follows of necessity that in course of time some groups
will drop behind the others and will come to be regarded as
socially inferior to the rest. To these septs the superior groups
refuse to give their daughters in marriage and there arises the
state of things illustrated by the diagram onpage 165. The balance
of the sexes is disturbed ; the superior groups find themselves
embarrassed with a surplus of girls ; and the bridegroom-price
tends to rise until it presses severely on the means of families
unfortunate enough to have several daughters to marry. Family
pride, religious prescription, and the necessity of avoiding
scandals, render it impossible to let girls grow up with the
prospect of remaining old maids ; convents and sisterhoods are
unknown ; and the only way out of the difficulty, as it presents
itself to the Rajput father, is to permit no more girls to arrive
at maturity than can certainly be provided with husbands. The
ultimate result no doubt is much the same as among savage
people like Nagas and Khonds, but it is arrived at in a different
174 PEOPLE OF INDIA
way and springs from a different principle. The Naga kills his
daughter lest a stronger man than he should desire her, and in
effecting her capture should take her father's head as an
incidental trophy. The Rajput makes away with his daughter
in the belief that no one will be anxious to marry her, and that
the family will be disgraced if she grows up an old maid. In
the one case husbands are too scarce ; in the other they are
obtrusively plentiful. It may be added that this refined form
of infanticide is far more difficult to suppress than the savage
form. The one dies out of itself as the forcible capture of wives
falls into disuse, and life generally becomes easier ; the other
tends to spread with the growth of family pride and personal
luxury, and may even offer substantial resistance to the attempt
to stamp it out by penal legislation.
It may be asserted with confidence that the savage form of
infanticide no longer exists in India. For many years past tribal
raids in quest of wives or of heads have been very effectually
discouraged, and the usage has died out with the removal of the
cause. Whether the refined or sumptuary form,' where a
daughter's life is sacrificed to save the dot demanded by family
pride, has entirely disappeared is a question on which there is
room for difference of opinion. That it prevailed on a large
scale up to comparatiyely recent times there is only too much
reason to believe, and it seems to have been most persistent
where one would least expect to find it — side by side with the
otherwise chivalrous traditions of the warlike Indo-Aryan races
of Upper India.
In 1881 Mr. Coldstream, Deputy Commissioner of Hoshyar-
pur in the Punjab, wrote on the subject as follows : —
"Forty years ago probably many hundreds of female
children were annually buried in this district immediately after
birth. When several female children were born in succession,
the destruction of the last born was carried out with the
following observance —a piece of gur (molasses) was placed in
the mouth of the child, a skein of cotton was laid on her breast,
and the following incantation recited two or three times : —
" Eat gur, spin your thread,
We don't want you, but a brother instead."
The infants were usually put into gharras or waterpots and
buried in the ground. . . . Illustrating the subject of the
small proportional number of females, I will quote some
remarks by a highly educated native officer, a Hindu. He
writes as follows : —
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 175
" Infanticide has not quite disappeared. I am quite sure that in certain old families,
those who by custom must spend much money on the marriage of daughters, and are poor, it
is still practised. They either suffocate them or give the juice of the «,4 plant (Calairopis
giganiea) in \\ie giirihi, the first nourishment given to a newborn child."
More recondite methods were also sometimes adopted. A
Panjabi friend of mine, a member of a tribe which followed the
custom of hypergamy, with whom I was discussing the subject
of female infanticide, told me that when he was eight years old
he was summoned to his mother's bedside to sanction and
assist at the murder of a newborn girl. His father being away
from home, he was called upon to exercise the patria potestas as
the eldest male member of the household then present. The
child was given him to hold, and the midwife poured over her
head two large jars of water, chilled almost to freezing by being
put out on the roof during a December night. Her face
instantly turned black and she died in the arms of her terrified
brother. All the girls that were born met with a similar fate.
The mother complied reluctantly with the barbarous usage of
the family, but the horror of the thing was with her through life,
and when she was dying her remorse conjured up a ghastly vision
of the spirits of her murdered children, standing at her bed-
side armed with iron hooks and crying vindictively to the soul
still lingering in her body, " Come out, come out that we may
tear you in pieces." This, however, happened nearly fifty years
ago, and my friend assures me that in his tribe at any rate
systematic infanticide has disappeared under the influence of
popular education, and that twenty girls may now be seen
where in his boyhood hardly one could be found.
Official opinion seems to incline, on the whole, to the
comfortable belief that these crude manifestations of paternal
authority have of late years fallen into disuse. No one has
the least desire to unveil the mysteries of high caste households,
and there is something to be said for the cynical view that it
is better to wink at the secret murder of an uncertain number
of babies than to face the certain odium of repressive legislation
enforced by the domiciliary visits of an Asiatic police. Hardly
any one, however, is prepared to go the length of asserting
that infanticide is now nothing more than a dim tradition of
the dreadful past. On the contrary the practice is definitely
stated to continue, though in a modified, more subtle, and,
as some may think, less merciful form. According to the
writers of the last three Census Reports, all of whom seem
to have taken much trouble to arrive at the truth, the mental
176 PEOPLE OF INDIA
attitude of the average Panjabi parent towards superfluous
daughters may be summed up in Clough's couplet :
" Thou shalt not kill, but need'st not strive
Officiously to keep alive."
Writing in 1883 Sir Denzil Ibbetson quotes Mr. Coldstream's
remark that "there is, I think, some indication given in the
statistics of the existence of a certain popular depreciation of
female child life," and goes on to say, "this last sentence
appears to me exactly to express the existing state of affairs.
That infanticide is practised at all generally I do not believe ;
that it is habitual with any class, I doubt ; and if with any,
it is, I think, only with some exceedingly limited sections of the
community, such as perhaps the Bedi families of Gurdaspur,
and even there takes the form of intentional neglect rather
than actual murder. But there is not the slightest doubt that
the life of a girl is less valued and worse cared for than that
of a boy ; chiefly indeed, among the hypergamous classes who
cannot find husbands for them, the higher castes of the Eastern
Punjab who will not sell their daughters, and the Hindus who
spend much money on their marriage and account it shameful
to leave them unmarried ; but also in a less degree and as a
relic of the old fighting days, and perhaps from the contagion
of Hindu ideas, among all other classes of the Punjab people
without distinction of race, religion, or locality."
Ten years later we find Mr. Maclagan, who conducted the
Census of 1891, stating his conclusions as follows : —
" It is notorious that in this country female life is less
cared for at all ages, and more especially in infancy, than that
of males. Whether the neglect of female life in early youth
is intentional or not, and whether infant girls are actually
killed, are questions to which our statistics can scarcely give
more than a very slight clue. The general impression, doubt-
less, is that in the province at large there is a certain amount
of customary neglect which can scarcely be called intentional;
but that in certain areas and among certain classes the evil
assumes a more serious form. And the statistical returns may
be found of some slight value in indicating the localities and
the castes which are most open to suspicion on this account." *
Mr. Rose, the Superintendent of the Census taken in 1901,
writes thus :
[* Census Report, 1891, vol. i., p, 217. Census Report, India, 191 1, vol, i.,
p. 215.]
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 177
" On the whole, 1 should be inclined to think that deliberate
female infanticide is rare, and that when perpetrated, it is due
to a combination of causes. If it was felt that the child was
likely to cause misfortune, and that her marriage would be
difficult, it may be that she would be killed. But such cases
cannot be numerous. To this the Jats, Hindu and Sikh, are
a possible exception, and the only solution of the problem in
their case is that infanticide is a barbarous form of Malthusian
practices. This idea was suggested many years ago by Major
Goldney, as Deputy-Commissioner of Ludhiana, the district
in which the data are the most inexplicable. Even less easy
is it to account for the mortality amongst girl-children after
the age of infancy. No one who has seen the peasantry,
especially the Jat peasantry, in their villages, at fairs and the
like, could for a moment suggest that women and girls in this
province are treated, generally, with cruelty or intentional
neglect. Sikhs, especially, treat women well. One can only
say that ignorance and an unconscious ill-treatment of females
at all ages may result from the low estimation in which savage
and backward races hold women. Of all the data obtained the
most significant is the mortality among female infants in years
of famine." *
The statistics of the subject certainly present some
remarkable features. It is difficult to offer any plausible
explanation of the fact that the proportion of girls to boys
among children under five ranges in British territory from
96 per cent, among Muhammadans, and 92 per cent, among
Hindus, to 76 per cent, among Sikhs, while the Sikh figure in
one district is no more than 70, and in a particular tribe falls
as low as 62 per cent. The idea has been thrown out that the
practice of killing female infants, if persevered in for many
generations, might induce among the surviving women a
hereditary tendency to bear more boys than girls. Darwin's
authority has been cited in support of this conjecture, which
was first put forward by Colonel Marshall in explanation of
the preponderance of males among the Todas of the Nilgiri
hills.f There is obviously no means of testing the speculation.
[* Census Report, 1901, vol. i., p. 216. Pandit Harikishan Kaul, while recognizing
that female infanticide now prevails only among certain families or groups of families
points out that female infants suffer largely from neglect (Censtis Report, 191 r, vol. i.
p. 230 et seq., 243 et seg.).^
[t C. Darwin, The Descent oj Man, and ed., 1889, p. 255 et seq. W. E. Marshall,
A Phrenologist among the Todas, 1873, p. in. W. H. R. Rivers, the latest and best
authority on the tribe, shows that while infanticide at one time prevailed widely, it has
R, PI 12 '
178 PEOPLE OF INDIA
but in 1891 Mr. Maclagan observed that "castes, such as the
Gakkhars and semi-Rajput tribes, such as the Dhunds and
Rathis, which used to practise or to be suspected of practising
infanticide have now a larger proportion of women than the
average ; and this fact so far tends to damage the theory that
female infanticide leads to a hereditary incapacity to produce
female children." In an earlier paragraph of the same report
Mr. Maclagan writes : " It has been suggested to me that the
methods of dressing young children (when they are dressed
at all) may have something to do with the different rates of
death among girls and boys. In the centre of the province
it is customary to find young girls dressed in petticoats only,
and young boys in jackets only; and as the latter is undoubtedly
the sounder method from a sanitary point of view, the boys
have a better assurance of life than the girls." He does not
himself accept this explanation, which is open to the obvious
criticism, first, that in other parts of India where the custom
in the matter of children's dress is the same, no such marked
disproportion between the sexes is observed ; and, secondly,
that when children are under five, even this exiguous raiment
is deemed superfluous, and both sexes run about impartially
naked. Seeing then, that neither natural selection nor fashion
can be appealed to in explanation of the Punjab statistics,
we can but take refuge in the sage and comprehensive remark
of the latest continental writer on the problem of sex that
the question is " involved in the profoundest obscurity." Only
one thing is certain — if legislation cannot compel a man to
love his neighbour like himself, still less can it compel him
to love his daughter as much as his son. The people them-
selves must cure the evil, if evil there be. The tradition of
ages which leads to the neglect of female children will only
give way to a general rise in the standard of domestic ethics.
That no doubt will come in time as the spread of education,
especially of female education, brings about a higher con-
ception of the position and influence of women in the Eastern
world.
The origin of the custom of hypergamy is obscure. We find
. it in full force at the time of the law-books, the
"^gamy.''^^'' earliest of which are believed by Buhler to
be somewhat anterior to the fourth and fifth
centuries b.c, and it has been shown to be quite alive and
now greatly diminished, and at the present day exists chiefly, owing to thdir conservatism,
among the priestly classes. (The Todas, 1906, pp. 478, 691.)]
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 179
continually assuming new forms at the present day. It is
curious that a practice which extends over so long a period,
and is so intimately connected with the evolution of caste,
should have escaped the notice of all modern writers on the
early history of marriage. The authors of the law-books give
no account of the causes which produced it, nor would one
expect them to do so. They merely say that marriages between
men of a higher class and women of a lower class are accord-
ing to the order of nature {anuloma "with the hair"), while
marriages of the converse type are pratiloma, " against the
hair " or unnatural. The usage seems to be one which might
arise wherever an invading race, bringing with it comparatively
few women, took captives from among the people whose terri-
tory they occupied. Captured women would become the wives
or concubines of their captors ; male captives, if not slain off-
hand, would be kept as slaves, and would in no case be accepted
as husbands for the daughters of the conquering race. One
may say, indeed, that wherever slavery has prevailed, or
wherever one race has established a marked political ascen-
dency over another, there hypergamy has necessarily estab-
lished itself The mixed or coloured races of America,
Mulattoes, Quadroons, Mestizos, and the like were, in the first
instance at any rate, the offspring of hypergamous unions,
corresponding to the anuloma marriages of the Indian law-
books. The fathers were Spaniards or Englishmen, the rtiothers
Indians or Negresses. In Rajputana, on the other hand, hyper-
gamy appears to be associated with territorial sovereignty and
the possession of landed property. In theory all Rajputs are
equal within the tribe, but ruling chiefs will only give thfeir
daughters to men of their own class, and a land-owning Rajput,
deeming himself no doubt a chieftain in a small way, will not
accept a landless man as his son-in-law. A curious story, which
seems to belong to the same order of ideas, is told in the
Punjab to account for the hypergamous status of one of the
Jat clans. One day, it is said, as the Emperor Akbar was out
hunting, he came suddenly upon a Jat woman who was stand-
ing by a well with a heavy jar of water on her head and a full-
grown buffalo and its calf on either side of her. The Emperor's
cavalcade frightened the animals and they prepared to break
away. But the sturdy Jatni was equal to the emergency.
With one hand she seized the buffalo and held it by a horn,
with the other she steadied the jar of water on her head, while
she secured the calf by putting her foot on its tethering rope.
i8o PEOPLE OF INDIA
Seeing this display of strength and presence of mind the
Emperor exclaimed, " A woman like that should be the mother
of heroes," and shortly afterwards took her to wife in due form.
Her people had places of honour given them in the Imperial
Darbar, and the clan has been known ever afterwards as Akbari
or Darbari Jats, ranking at the top of the hypergamous system
of the tribe, taking wives from other clans, but giving their
daughters to none.*
A singularly complete parallel to the Indian usage of hyper-
gamy occurs in Madagascar, where the Antimerina or patrician
caste is divided into six classes, each of which claims descent
from a royal ancestor and regards itself as a group of blood
relations. According to M. Arnold Van Gennep,t the latest
authority on the subject, these groups are endogamous in
theory, but a man of a higher class may marry a woman of a
lower class. On the other hand, a woman of higher rank is
prohibited by strict taboo from marrying beneath her ; and if
she should so far demean herself as to marry a commoner, she
loses her title of nobility and is disowned by her family.
Here one is tempted to hazard the conjecture that the matri-
monial relations between patricians and plebeians in Rome
before the Lex Canuleia (b.c. 445), may have been regulated by
the custom of hypergamy, patricians taking wives from among
the plebeians but not giving their daughters in return. This
seems to be in accordance with the traditional origin of the
plebeians. Had the two groups been as absolutely separate
as the imaginary debate reported in the fourth book of Livy
seems to imply, it is difficult to understand how the jus con-
nubii could have been granted as readily as is alleged to have
been the case, or why the plebs should have been so anxious to
obtain the concession. When distinct castes have once been
formed, the sentiment of the lower groups as well as of the
higher is usually opposed to amalgamation. I surmise, there-
fore, that at the time of the passing of the Lex Canuleia, the
plebs and the patriciate had not actually hardened into castes,t
and that marriages between patrician men and plebeian women
did actually take place, possibly by an inferior grade of ritual.
What the plebs wanted and what the law gave them, it is
[* Akbar certainly did not marry a Jat girl ; the tale is told by more than one Jat sept.
(H. A. Rose, Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and N. W. Frontier Province,
vol. ii., 191 1, pp. 220 note, 236, 377.)]
t Tabou et Totemisme h. Madagascar, Arnold Van Gennep, Paris, 1904.
X Ortolan speaks of them as "two radically distinct castes between the members of
which a Roman marriage could never take place." {History of Roman Law, p. 585.)
CASTE AND MARRIAGE
181
suggested, was the right for, plebeian men to marry patrician
women. This conjecture seems to derive some support from
Livy's account of the transaction. He says in one place that
the denial of connubium to the plebs dated only from the time
of the decemvirs ; while in another passage he puts into the
mouth of the advocate of the plebeian cause an argument which
is only intelligible on the assumption that marriages between
patricians and plebeians were not wholly unknown. The
patrician orator argues that the change will introduce confusion
into the system of clans ; that no one will know to what gens he
belongs ; and that the religious observances {sacra gentilicid)
incumbent on these family groups will come to be neglected.
To this the plebeian replies that the status of the father will
determine that of the child {patrem sequuntur liberi), and that
the appeal to religion is a mere attempt to prejudice the case.
Now if the plebs and patriciate had been distinct castes in the
strict Indian sense of the term, no intermarriage would have
been possible, and the question of the offspring of mixed
marriages belonging to their father's group could not have
arisen. The argument patrem sequuntur liberi would have
appealed to no one had it not been a statement of fact with
which the audience were familiar. And it cannot have meant
that if a plebeian man married a patrician woman the children
ranked as plebeians, for if that had been so, there would have
been full connubium and no legislation would have been re-
quired. It seems to follow that the statement expressed the
fact that when a patrician man married a plebeian woman, the
children were reckoned as patricians and belonged to the gens
of the father — that the relations between the two groups were
what we call hypergamous.
Whatever may have been the origin of the custom, whether
slavery, conquest, racial superiority, political or plutocratic
domination, or territorial supremacy gave it the first impulse,
it is clear that, in any locality where it got started, the principle
would be likely to extend itself, by the operation of imitative
fiction, to the connubial relations of all classes not absolutely
equal in rank. This is what seems to have happened in several
parts of India, where the influence of hypergamy may be traced
in the disturbance of the balance of the sexes, and the preva-
lence of polygamy or female infanticide.
Of all the peculiar usages which are associated with marriage
in India none have impressed themselves so distinctly on the
census statistics as the custom which prohibits the second
i82 PEOPLE OF INDIA
marriage of a widow, and the convention enjoining the mar-
riage of a daughter before she attains physical
'^''^mlSe!'^^''* maturity. In the case of the higher castes
both of these usages may claim a respectable
antiquity. In the lower strata of society, on the other hand,
they appear to have been developed, in the form which they
now assume, at a comparatively recent date under the pressure
of peculiar social conditions. Both, again, are looked upon by
the people who observe them as badges of social distinction,
and to the fact that they are regarded in this light is mainly
due their rapid extension within the last two or three genera-
tions. No excuse therefore is needed for examining their
prevalence and its causes in some detail.
For the ultimate origin of the prohibition of widow marriage
among the higher castes we must look back,
widow marri^e un- ^^^ beyond the comparative civilization of
known in Vedio the Vedas, to the really primitive belief that
^'^^^" the dead chief or head of the family will need
human companionship and service in that other world which
savage fancy pictures as a shadowy copy of this. To this
belief is due the practice of burning the widow on the funeral
pile of her dead husband, which is referred to as an " ancient
custom " (purdnd dharma) in the Atharva Veda.* The direc-
tions given in the Rig Veda for placing the widow on the pile
with her husband's corpse, and then calling her back to the
world of life, appear, as Tylor t has pointed out, to represent
" a reform and a reaction against a yet more ancient savage rite
of widow sacrifice, which they prohibited in fact, but yet kept
up in symbol." The bow of the warrior and the sacrificial
instruments of the priest were thrown back upon the pile to be
consumed ; the wife, after passing through the mere form of
sacrifice, was held to have fulfilled her duties to her husband
and was free to marry again. A passage in the Rig Veda
quoted by Zimmer J shows that in some cases, at any rate, the
widow married her husband's younger brother (devar) ; and it
is not unreasonable to suppose that her obligations in this
respect were very much what we now find among the castes
which permit widow marriage.
* Atharva Veda, l8, 3, 1, quoted by Zimmer, Altittdisches Leben, p. 331.
t Primitive Culture, i., 466.
% Altindisches Leben, p. 329. See also Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, 575, and
Macdonell, History of Sanskrit Literature, 126. Jolly, Kecht und Sitie, 59, seems to take
a different view.
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 183
At this point the historical record, such as it is, breaks off,
and conjecture alone can divine the precise „ ^-^ ■ i
„,. ,•,., ,, T^, r Causes ofits revival,
motives which induced the Brahmans of a
later age to revive that custom of primitive savagery which
their ancestors had expressly condemned. Closer contact
with more barbarous races ; the growth of the sacerdotal
spirit ; the desire, as Sir Henry Maine has suggested, to get
rid of the inconvenient lien which the widow held over her
husband's property ; — all these motives may have contributed
to the result. But when widow-sacrifice had been thus re-
introduced, it is primd facie unlikely that it should have been
enforced with that rigid consistency which distinguishes the
true savage ; and, in fact, the texts prescribe for the widow the
milder alternative of a life of ascetic self-denial and patient
waiting to join the husband who has gone before. According
to some authorities, they also recognize, though as a less
excellent path than the two former, the alternative of re-
marriage.
I will not attempt to enter upon the controversy as to the
precise meaning of the passage in Parasara's considerations of
Institutes, on which the modern advocates of property.ofspirituai
widow marriage rely, still less to discuss its T^enefit, of sacra-
,.,.,. , .. , , , mental doctrine,
applicability to the present age of the world.
It seems more profitable to state the causes which, irrespective
of isolated texts, would in any case have favoured the growth
of the modern custom which forbids the widows of the highest
castes to marry again, and which shows signs of extending
itself far beyond its present limits and finally of suppressing
widow marriage throughout the entire Hindu community.
Some, at any rate, of these causes are not far to seek. In the
first place, the anxiety of the early Hindu law-givers to cir-
cumscribe a woman's rights to property would unquestionably
tend to forbid her to join her lot to a man whose interest it
would be to assert and extend those rights as against the
members of her husband's family. At the same time the
growth of the doctrine of spiritual benefit would require her to
devote her life to the annual performance of her husband's
srdddh,* Technical obstacles to her re-marriage also arise from
the Brahmanical theory of marriage itself That ceremony
being regarded as a sacrament ordained for the purification of
women, and its essential portion being the gift of the woman
by her father to her husband, the effect of the gift is to transfer
• Tagore Law Lsciures, 1879, pp. 187, 188.
i84 PEOPLE OF INDIA
her from her own gotra or exogamous group into that of her
husband. The bearing of this transfer on the question of her
re-marriage is thus stated by an orthodox Hindu at pages
276-277 of the Papers relating to Infant Marriage and Enforced
Widowhood, published by the Government of India : —
" Her father being thus out of the question, it may be said that she may give herself in
marriage. But this she cannot do, because she never had anything like disposal of herself.
When young, she was given away, so the ownership over her (if I may be permitted to use
the phrase) vested then in the father, was transferred by a solemn religious act to the
husband, and he being no more, there is no one to give her away : and .since Hindu
marriage must take the form of religious gift, her marriage becomes impossible."
The argument seems academic, but in the atmosphere of
pedantry which pervades Indian society an academic argument
is as good as any other.
Some influence must also have been exerted in the same direc-
tion by the competition for husbands result-
iypergaLy^ ing from the action of hypergamy. Widows
certainly would be the first to be excluded
from the marriage market, for in their case the interests of the
individual families would be identical with those of the group.
The family would already have paid a bridegroom-price to get
their daughter or sister married, and would naturally be indis-
posed to pay a second, and probably higher price to get her
married again. The group, in its turn, would be equally
adverse to an arrangement which tended to increase the number
of marriageable women. Members of the higher castes, indeed,
have frequently told me that these reasons of themselves were
sufficient to make them regard with disfavour the modern
movement in favour of widow marriage. For, said one of them,
we find it hard enough already to get our daughters married
into families of our own rank, and things will be worse still if
widows enter the competition with all the advantages they
derive from having got over their first shyness, and acquired
some experience of the ways of men. The sentiments of Mr.
Weller sounded strange in the mouth of a Kulin Brahman, but
the argument was used in entire good faith, and was backed up
by much lamentation over the speaker's ill-luck in being the
father of four daughters, all unmarried.
The considerations stated above are entitled to whatever
support they may derive from the fact that
"^^^ castes. °^^^ ^^^ Muhammadans, and those Hindu castes
which permit widows to remarry, know
nothing of the custom of hypergamy, and as a rule pay for brides.
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 185
not for bridegrooms. Among these groups the normal propor-
tion of the sexes, whatever that may be at the age of marriage,
has not been affected by any artificial divisions, and there is every
reason to believe that widows who are in other respects eligible
have no particular difficulty in finding husbands. Polygamy
prevails on a limited scale, and a certain proportion of the men
have two wives, the second wife being often a young widow
chosen by the man himself for her personal attractions, after
the first wife, whom his parents selected for him, has lost her
looks and become little more than a household drudge. Another
point is that the lower castes seem to have a greater capacity
than the higher for throwing off sub-castes. Deviations from
caste usage, trivial changes of occupation, settlement outside
the traditional habitat of the caste, and a variety of similar
causes, which in the higher castes would, as a rule, merely
affect the standing of certain families in the scale of hypergamy,
tend in the lower castes to form endogamous groups, the
members of which intermarry only among themselves. The
difference is important, as the latter process does not disturb
the balance of the sexes, and the former does.
The present attitude of the Hindu community towards
proposals to recognize and extend the prac- Reeling of the
tice of widow marriage may, I think, be people as to exten-
briefly stated somewhat to the following s!°^ °^ widow mar-
effect : — The most advanced class of educated
men sympathize in a general way with the movement, but their
sympathy is clouded by the apprehension that any considerable
addition to the number of marriageable women would add to
the existing difficulty and expense of getting their daughters
married. Below these we find a very numerous class who
are educated enough to appreciate the prohibition of widow
marriage supposed to be contained in certain texts, and who
have no desire to go behind that or any similar injunction in
support of which tolerably ancient authority can be quoted.
Then come the great mass of the uneducated working classes,
with rather vague notions as to the scriptures, but strong in
their reverence for Brahmans, and keen to appreciate points of
social precedence. To them widow marriage is a badge of
social degradation, a link which connects those who practise
it with Doms, Bunas, Bagdis and "low people" of various
kinds. Lastly, at the bottom of society, as understood by the
average Hindu, we find a large group of castes and tribes of
which the lower section is represented by pure non-Aryan
i86 PEOPLE OF INDIA
tribes practising adult marriage and widow re-marriage, while
the upper section consists of castes of doubtful origin, most
of whom, retaining widow marriage, have taken to infant
marriage, while some have got so far as to throw off sub-castes
distinguished by their abstention from widow marriage.*
It is not suggested that the groups indicated above can be
marked off with absolute accuracy. But without insisting
upon this, it is clear that the tendency of the lower strata of
Hindu society is continually towards closer and closer con-
formity with the usages of the higher castes. These alone
present a definite pattern which admits up to a certain point
of ready imitation, and the whole Brahmanical system works
in this direction. Of late years, moreover, the strength of
the Hinduising movement has been greatly augmented by
the improvement of communications. People travel more,
pilgrimages can be more easily made, and the influence of the
orthodox section of society is thus much more widely diffused.
Railways in particular, which are sometimes represented as a
solvent of caste prejudices, have in fact enormously extended
the area within which those prejudices reign supreme.
The practice of infant marriage has spread much further
and taken root more deeply among the lower castes than its
social complement, the prohibition of widow marriage. Both
customs, the positive as well as the negative, have been
borrowed from the higher castes, and are now regarded as
paths leading towards social distinction. But the one is much
easier to follow than the other. A man must get his daughter
married at latest when she is fourteen or fifteen years old.
To marry her five or six years earlier causes him no particular
inconvenience, and confers on him whatever consideration may
attach to religious orthodoxy and social propriety. On the
other hand, to stop the re-marriage of widows, in castes where
the balance of the sexes has not been disturbed by hypergamy,
must at starting cause some practical inconvenience. Among
the lower castes women are much more of a
Prevalence oMnfant ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ . ^^^^
assert themselves freely on a variety of
public occasions, and in many cases they have secured for them-
selves the right to initiate proceedings for divorce. One can
[* In Haroda the attitude of the people towards widow marriage is described as "passive
sympathy on the part of the educated and blind opposition on tlie part of the ignorant." A
recent Act permits a girl widow under sixteen to re-marry with the consent of her guardian ;
if she is above sixteen she can marry again if she pleases (Census Report, 1911, vol. i.,
p. l<i% et seq.).^
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 187
hardly doubt that their influence would be exercised in favour of
widow marriage, and that it would tend on the whole towards
keeping that institution alive. Some allowance must also be
made for the fact that the lower castes do not keep their
women in seclusion. A good-looking widow shut up in the
family zenana can be more easily sacrificed to notions of social
propriety than a woman who goes out and meets possible
suitors every day of her life. To whatever cause the difference
may be due, it is certain that of two customs, both adopted
under pressure of the same motives, the one — infant marriage
— is almost universal, while the other — the prohibition of
widow marriage-^has at present only a comparatively limited
currency. Infant marriage in fact is now so widely diffused
as to have almost entirely displaced adult marriage within the
limits of the caste system proper. The Dravidian races of
Chutia Nagpur, the Central Provinces and the Madras hills,
the Mongoloid tribes of the Himalayan region, Assam and
Burma, still maintain a system of courtship and marriage
between full-grown youths and maidens which has been
minutely described by several sympathetic observers. Directly
we leave these tolerably compact tribes and pass on to the less
definite groups which form a debatable land between the tribe
and the caste, we find either infant marriage in undisputed
possession or a mixed system prevailing, which tolerates adult
marriage as a resource open to those who cannot afford to do
anything better for their children, but at the same time enjoins
the more respectable custom of infant marriage for all parents
whose circumstances admit of it.
In the case of the lower castes there is little room for doubt
that the custom of infant marriage has been
consciously borrowed from the higher castes "marria^.*^
in obedience to that tendency to imitation
which we may almost describe as an ultimate law of the caste
system, But how did the higher castes come by a custom which
is without a parallel, at any rate on so large a scale, elsewhere
in the world, and which cannot be referred to any of those
primitive instincts which have usually determined the relations
of the sexes ? Neither sexual passion nor the desire for
companionship and service can be called in to account for a
man marrying a girl at an age when she is physically incapable
of fulfilling any of the duties of a wife. Primitive man knows
nothing of infant marriage, nor is it easy to conceive how such
an institution could have arisen in the struggle for existence
i88 PEOPLE OF INDIA
out of which society has been evolved. The modern savage
woos in a summary and not over delicate fashion a sturdy
young woman who can cook his food, carry baggage, collect
edible grubs, and make herself generally useful. To his
untutored mind the Hindu child-bride would seem about as
suitable a helpma.te as a modern professional beauty. If, then,
infant marriage is in no way a normal product of social evolu-
tion, and in fact is met with only in India, to what causes shall
we look for its origin ? The standard Brahmanical explanation
is palpably inadequate. It represents marriage as a sort of
sacrament, of which every maiden must partake in order that
she may cleanse her own being from the taint of original sin,
that she may accomplish the salvation of, her father and his
ancestors, and that she may bring forth a son to carry on the
domestic worship {sacra privatd) of her husband's family. So
far as marriage itself goes,- all this is intelligible enough as a
highly specialized development of certain well-known ancient
ideas. But it does not touch the. question of age. Granted
that the begetting of a son is essential for the continuance of
the sacra privata, as Greek and Roman examples teach us, why
should the householder on whom this solemn duty devolves
go out of his way to defer its fulfilment by marrying a girl
who has not yet attained the age of child-bearing? The
Brahman will reply that the earlier in a girl's life she accom-
plishes her mystical functions the better. But this clearly
belongs to the large class of ex post facto explanations of which
sacerdotal and legal literature is in all ages and countries so
full. The priests and lawyers who compile the text-books find
certain customs in force, and feel bound to invent reasons for
their existence. Being unfettered by the historical sense, and
disposed to give free play to their inner consciousness, it is
hardly surprising that their reasons should be as often false
as true.
An explanation of a more scientific character, put forward
by Mr. Nesfieldin 1885, seeks to connect the
"""■^Ssory^^"^'^ custom with communal marriage and the
practice of capturing wives. On this theory
infant marriage was consciously introduced with the object of
protecting the child-wife from the stain of communism within
the tribe and from the danger of being forcibly abducted by a
member of an alien tribe. It was, in fact, a revolt against
primitive usages which the moral sense of a more civilized
generation had begun to condemn. The argument is ingenious,
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 189
but it does not fit the facts we have to deal with. The society
depicted in the Rig and Atharva Vedas must have got far
beyond the stage of communal marriage and forceful abduction
of wives. Courtship of a very modern tpye was fully recog-
nized, and the consent of the girl's father or brother was sought ^
only after the young people had themselves come to an under-
standing. As an additional and conclusive indication that the
kind of marriage contemplated by the Vedas was the individual
marriage of comparatively advanced civilization, I may refer to
a remarkable custom, traces of which have survived in modern
Italy — the lustration of the bride's night-dress after the
wedding night.* Such a custom is clearly incompatible with
communal marriage, and could only have arisen in a society
which set a high value on female chastity and had left primitive
communism (if, indeed, such a condition ever existed) ages
behind.
The change from this Arcadian state of things to a regime of
infant marriage seems to have taken place at Antiquity of the
a very early date. According to Baudhayana custom; its possible
a girl who is unmarried when she reaches causes,
maturity is degraded to the rank of a Sudra, and her father
is held to have committed a grave sin by having neglected
to get her married. This rule is common to all the law-
books, and many of them go further still and fix a definite age
for the marriage of girls. The later the treatise, the earlier is
the age which it prescribes. According to Manu,t a man of
thirty should marry a girl of twelve, and a man of twenty-four
a girl of eight. Later writers fix the higher limit of age in
such cases at ten years or eight years, and reduce the lower
limit to seven, six, and even four years. What induced people
already practising a rational system of adult marriage to
abandon it in favour of a rigid and complicated system of Infant
marriage ? In the nature of things no confident answer can be
given ; the whole question belongs to the domain of conjecture.
One can only surmise that the growth of the patriarchal power
of the head of the family must have been adverse to any asser-
tion of independence on the part of its female members, and
* Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, p. 314, Gubernatis, Usi Nuziali, p. 432. [Marriage in the
early Vedic texts appears essentially as the union of two persons of full development.
Child-wives first occur regularly in the Sutra period, though it is still uncertain to what
extent the rule of marriage before puberty then obtained. (A. A. Macdonell, A. B. Keith,
Vtdk Index of Names and Subjects, 1913, i, 475 et seq.)'\
[t Laws, IX. 94.]
I90 PEOPLE OF INDIA
more especially to their exercising the right of choosing their
husbands for themselves. Where family interests were involved,
it may well have seemed simpler to get a girl married before
she had developed a will of her own, than to court domestic
difficulties by allowing her to grow up and fall in love oii her
own account.* The gradual lowering of the position of women
from the ideal standard of Vedic times, and the distrust of their
vir'tue induced by the example of pre-matrimonial license set by
the Dravidian races must also have had its effect, and, as is not
obscurely hinted in the literature of the subject, a girl would be
married as a child in order to avert the possibility of her
causing scandal later on.
Apart from these general causes, a powerful influence must
also have been exerted by the custom of hypergamy, which, as
has been explained above, limits the number of possible hus-
bands for the girls of the higher classes and thus compels the
parents to endeavour to secure appropriate bridegrooms as
soon as possible. That this motive operates strongly at the
present day is plainly stated by one of the writers in the
official publication already referred to,t who says : —
" Under these circumstances, when, in the case of » daughter, parents see that, unless
they marry her at once, the one or two bridegrooms that there are open for their selection
would be availed of by others, and that they would be disabled from marrying her before the
eleventh year, and that they would thereby incur a religious sin and social degradation as
regards the caste, they would seize that opportunity to marry their daughter, quite dis-
regardful of the evil effects of infant marriages."
Again, when the custom of infant marriage had once been
started, under pressure of social necessity, by the families of
the highest group, who had the largest surplus of marriageable
daughters, a sort of fashion would have been set and would be
blindly followed through all the grades. Two forces are thus at
work in the same direction, both tending to disturb the balance
of the sexes and to produce abnormal matrimonial relations
between the members of different social groups. Enforced
competition for husbands on the part of the higher groups, and
the desire to imitate their superiors which animates the lower
groups combine to run up the price of husbands in the upper
classes ; while the demand for wives by the men of the lowest
class, which ought by rights to produce equilibrium, is arti-
ficially restricted in its operation by the rule that they can in
[* A further extension of the practice is shown in the custom of betrothing unborn children
which is reported among the Kunbis of Western India, and the Uppara salt-makers of
Madras {Census Report, Baroda, 1911, vol. i., p. 148; Central Provmces, 191 1, vol. i., p. 137).]
+ Papers relating to Infant Marriage and Enforced Widowhood in India, p. 178.
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 191
no circumstances marry a woman of the classes above their
own. These men, therefore, are left very much out in the cold,
and often do not get wives until late in life. An unmarried
son does not disgrace the family, but there is no greater
reproach than to have a daughter unmarried at the age of
puberty. Husbands are bought for the girls, and the family
gets its money's worth in social estimation. Bargains, how-
ever, must be taken when they are to be had; and no father
dares run the risk of waiting till his daughter is physically
mature. He is bound to be on the safe side, and therefore he
gets her married, child as she may be, whenever a good match
offers.*
Many hard things have been said of infant marriage, and
the modern tendency is to assume that a population which
countenances such a practice must be in a fair way towards
extreme moral degradation, if not to ultimate extinction. An
Indian apologist might reply that much of the criticism is
greatly exaggerated, and is founded on considerable ignorance
of the present conditions and future possibilities of oriental
life. He might point out that, in fact, excluding the poetical
view that marriages are made in heaven, two working theories
of the institution are at present in existence — one which leaves
marriages to make themselves by the process of unrestricted
courtship, and another which requires them to be made by
the parents or guardians of the persons who are to be married.
The first, which may perhaps be called the method of natural
selection, is accepted and more or less acted up to by all
Western nations, except those who follow the French custom
of manages de convenance. The second, a system of avowedly
artificial selection, is in force, with few exceptions, throughout
[* In the Central Provinces " infant marriage is not, so far as can be inferred from
the present practices, an indigenous custom among the tribes, but has sometimes been
adopted by those of them who have been brought into contact with Hindu ideas, and
are attempting by adopting Hindu customs, to raise their status. ... It would seem
to have had its origin in the increasing demand for women's labour as life changed from
nomadic to more settled conditions, together with ;the growing sense of individual property,
and the altered view of the position of woman which accompanied the development of the
patriarchal system" (Census Report, Central Provinces, 191 1, vol. i., p. 137 ^? seq.). Mr.
Gait regards the theory that infant marriage was borrowed from Hinduism as untenable :
" Like others of the same kind, it ignores the important part played by the aborigines in the
development of Indian religious ideas and social practices" (Census Report, India, 191 1,
vol. i., p. 264). In parts of Bengal, Behar and Darbhanga the prevalence of infant
marriage is attributed to the teaching and influence of the Maithil Brahmans, to whom the
celebration of the marriage ceremony is a source of profit (Census Report, Bengal, 191 1,
vol. i., p. 339).]
192 PEOPLE OF INDIA
the East, and assumes its most rigid form in the usages of
Hindu society. He might further observe that in entering
upon this subject we must dismiss from our minds all those
ideas of love and courtship with which, for most Europeans, the •
institution of marriage is associated. Whether such ideas will
ever gain a footing in India is a question on
^^^ marriage!^^*'^* which it would be rash to hazard an opinion.
To fancy it possible to introduce them on a
large scale now would argue an ignorance of the elementary
conditions of Eastern life rivalling that of the famous under-
graduate who told the examiner that John the Baptist was
beheaded because he would dance with Herodias' daughter.
The dream of an Indian Hermann and Dorothea wandering
hand in hand through the ripening rice-fields, and plighting
their troth in the odorous stillness of the palm-grove, would
be an equally grotesque misapplication of Western ideas to
Eastern surroundings. Here and there, amongst the Hinduised
Unitarians of the Brahmo-Samaj, or in the group of Anglicised
Indians who, having finished their education in England and
adopted more or less completely European clothes and
European manners, seem now to be on the high-road to form
a new caste, it may be that marriage will be preceded by
courtship of the European type. But even within these
narrow circles such cases will for a long time to come be
rare, and will be confined to those families which are afflicted
with a surplus of daughters and find a difficulty in getting
them married under normal conditions. For all Hindus,
except the relatively small number who are influenced by
European ideas on the subject of marriage, the bare idea that
a girl can have any voice in the selection of her husband is
excluded by the operation of three inexorable sanctions— by
the ordinances of the Hindu religion, by the internal structure
of the caste system, and by the general tone and conditions
of social life in India. Religion prescribes that, like the Roman
bride of early days, a Hindu girl shall be given {tradita in
manum) by her father into the power of her husband; caste
complications demand that the ceremonial portion of the
transfer shall be effected while she is still a child ; while the
character of society, the moral tone of the men, the seclusion
of the women, the immemorial taboos and conventions of
family etiquette, render it impossible that she should be wooed
and won like her European sister. To persons of a romantic
turn of mind the suggestion that infant marriage in some shape
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 193
must be accepted as an ultimate fact of the Hindu social system
will sound like a final abandonment of all hope of reform.
But an orthodox Hindu may justly reply that there is more
to be said for the custom than appears at first sight. He may
fairly argue that if any sort of controlling authority is to
make people's marriages for them, the earlier it commences
and completes its operations the better. Where the choice
of a husband must in any case be undertaken by the parents,
it is clearly tempting Providence for them to defer it until
their daughter has grown up, and may have formed an em-
barrassing attachment on her own account. As for love, that
may come — and, from all that one hears and reads of Hindu
unions, usually does come — as readily after marriage as before,
provided that opportunities for falling in love with the wrong
man are judiciously withheld.
When we have shown that a custom is ancient and that it
is deeply rooted in the constitution of Indian society, it may
seem that there is not much more to be said. But the physio-
logical side of the question cannot be left wholly out of account.
Looked at from this point of view, what does infant marriage
really mean and what are its ultimate tendencies ? Now, the
first point to realize is, that in different parts
of India infant marriage prevails in two .f^e^fCueSn.
widely different forms, one of which is at
least free from physiological objections, while the other deserves,
from every point of view, the strongest condemnation. The
former usage, which is current in the Punjab, is thus described
by Sir Denzil Ibbetson, a high authority on the usages and
domestic life of that part of India : —
"Whferever infant marriage is the custom, the bride and bridegroom do not come
together till a second ceremony called muklawa has been performed, till when the bride
lives as a virgin in her father's house. This second ceremony is separated from the actual
wedding by an interval of three, five, seven, nine, or eleven years, and the girl's parents fix
the time for it. Thus it often happens that the earlier in life the marriage takes place, the
later cohabitation begins. For instance, in the eastern districts, Jats generally marry at from
five to seven years of age, and Rajputs at fifteen or sixteen, or even older ; but the Rajput
couple begins at once to cohabit, whereas the parents of the Jat girl often find her so useful
at home as she grows up that some pressure has to be put upon them to give her up to her
husband, and the result is that, for practical purposes, she begins married life later than the
Rajput bride."
No one who has seen a Punjabi regiment march past, or has
watched the sturdy Jat women lift their heavy water-jars at
the village well, is -likely to have any misgivings as to the
effect of their marriage system on the physique of the race.
Among the Rajputs both sexes are of slighter build than the
R, PI 13
194 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Jats, but here again there are no signs of degeneration. The
type is different, but that is all.
As we leave the great recruiting ground of the Indian army,
and travel south-eastward along the plains of the Ganges, the
healthy sense which bids the warrior races keep their girls at
home until they are fit to bear the burden of maternity seems
to have been cast out by the demon of corrupt ceremonialism,
ever ready to sacrifice helpless women and children to the
tradition of a fancied orthodoxy. Already in the United
Provinces we find the three highest castes — the Brahman,. the
Rajput, and the Kayasth — permitting the bride, whether apta
viro or not, to be sent to her husband's house immediately after
the wedding ; although it is thought better, and is more usual,
to wait for a second ceremony called gauna, which may take
place one, three, five or seven years after the first, and is fixed
with reference to the physical development of the bride.
What is the exception in the United Provinces tends
unhappily to become the rule in Bengal. Here the influence
of woman's tradition (strt-dchdr) has overlaid the canonical
rites of Hindu marriage with a mass of senseless hocus-pocus
(performed for the most part in the women's apartments at the
back of the courtyard, which in India, as in ancient Greece,
. ^ , forms the centre of the family domicile), and
Abuses m Bengal. j j -.^i , , , r
has succeeded, without a shadow of textual
authority, in bringing about the monstrous abuse that the girls
of the upper classes commence married life at the age of nine
years, and become mothers at the very earliest time that it is
physically possible for them to do so. How long this practice
has been in force no one can say for certain. Nearly a century
ago, when. Dr. Francis Buchanan made his well-known survey
of Bengal, embracing, under the first Lord Minto's orders,
" the progress and most remarkable customs of each different
sect or tribe of which the population consists,'' he wrote as
follows of one of the districts in Bihar, the borderland between
Bengal and the United Provinces :—
" Premature marriages among some tribes are, in Shahabad, on the same footing as in
Bengal, that is, consummation talces place before the age of puberty. This custom, however,
has not extended far, and the people are generally strong and tall. The Pamar Rajputs,
among whom the custom of early consummation is adopted, form a striking proof of the
evils of this custom ; for among them I did not observe one good-looking man, except the
Raja Jaya Prakas, and most of them have the appearance of wanting vigour both of body
and mind. This custom, so far as it extends, and the great number of widows condemned
by rank to live single, no doubt prove some check upon population." *
[* M. Martin, Eastern India, 1838, vol. i., p. 472.]
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 195
In another place Dr. Buchanan says that in respect of
marriage customs, Patna—
"is nearly on a footing with Bhagalpur, but here (in Bihar) the custom of premature
marriage is not so prevalent : and it must be observed that in these districts this custom is by
no means such a check on population as in Bengal, for there the girl usually is married when
she is ten years of age, but in this district the girl remains at her father's house until the age
of puberty, and of course her children are stronger and she is less liable to sterility.*
At the beginning of this century, then, we find the premature
inception of conjugal relations described by a peculiarly compe-
tent observer as an established usage in Bengal, which was
beginning to extend itself among the high castes in Bihar.
Concerning the state of things at the present day, a highly
educated Hindu gentleman, one of the ablest and most energetic
of our native officials in Bengal, wrote to me some years ago as
follows : —
" It is the general practice — as indefensible as reprehensible under the Hindu scriptures —
for husband and wife to establish cohabitation immediately after marriage. Parents
unconsciously encourage the practice and make it almost unavoidable. . . . On the second
day after marriage is the flower-bed ceremony ; the husband and wife — a boy and girl, or
generally, nowadays, a young man and a girl — must lie together in the nuptial bed. . . .
Within eight days of her marriage the girl must go back to her father's house and return to
her father-in-law's, or else she is forbidden to cross "her husband's threshold for a year. In
a, few families the bride is not brought in for a year ; but in the majority of cases this is
considered more inconvenient than the necessities of the case would require, and the eight
days' rule is kept, so as not to bar intercourse for a year. It would cost nothing worth the
reckoning, and the good would be immense, if the one-year rule were strictly enforced in all
cases ; or better, if the interval were increased from one to two years, and the subsidiary
eight days' rule expunged from the social code. . . . The evil effects of the pernicious
custom, which not only tolerates, but directly encourages unnatural indulgence, need no
demonstration. Among other things, it forces a premature puberty, and is thus the main
root of many of the evils of early marriage, which may be avoided without any affront to
religion."
This opinion — the opinion of an orthodox Hindu of high caste,
who has not permitted his English education to denationalize
him— marks the social and physiological side of infant marriage
in Bengal.
The matter is one to be handled with discretion. No one
wQuld wish to kindle afresh the ashes of an extinct agitation.
Happily there is reason to believe that the leaders of Indian
society are fully alive to the disastrous consequences, both
to the individual and the race, which arise from premature
cohabitation and are anxious to use their influence to defer the
commencement of conjugal life until the wife Reform in Rajpu-
has attained the full measure of physical tana,.
maturity requisite to fit her for child-bearing. Here the great
[* Hid., vol. i., p. 112 e( set/.]
196 PEOPLE OF INDIA
clans of Rajputana have set an example which deserves to be
followed throughout India. Themselves among the purest
representatives of the Indo-Aryan type, they have revived the
best traditions of the Vedic age and have established for them-
selves the ordinance that no girl shall be married before she is
fourteen years old and that the marriage expenses shall in no
case exceed a certain proportion of the father's yearly income.
That, I venture to think, is the aim which those who would
reform society should, for the present, set before themselves
If they succeed in doing for India what Colonel Walter did for
Rajputana, they will achieve more than any Indian reformer
has yet accomplished. To bring back the Vedas is no unworthy
ideal.
The Rajputana movement is so remarkable in itself and
contains the germs of such high promise that it calls for fuller
notice. Nearly twenty years ago, at the suggestion of Colonel
Walter, then Agent to the Governor-General in Rajputana, all
the Sardars of the various States of Rajputana assembled at
Ajmer for the purpose of discussing arrangements for regu-
lating the expenses incurred on the occasion of marriages,
deaths, etc., among Rajputs of all ranks
^""^krit s^bhl^"^'"" except the ruling chiefs. By the unanimous
decision of these leaders of Rajput society,
a series of observances were prescribed which, revised from
time to time, have now assumed the form of definite rules
enforced by the influence of a society known, in grateful com-
memoration of its founder, as the Walterkrit Rajputra Hita-
karini Sabha. The chief Political Officer in Rajputana is the
President of the Society, and in every State a committee is
appointed, consisting of a Sardar, an official and members of
the Charan and Rao castes, to make arrangements for carrying
out the regulations regarding marriages and deaths and other
instructions embodied in the rules.
Under the head of marriage expenses, if the marriage is that
of a Thakur himself or of an eldest son, sister or daughter, the
limit of expenditure is fixed on the following scale : When the
value of the State is below Rs. i,ooo, not more than two-thirds
of the annual income may be spent at the marriage; for values
between Rs. i,ooo and Rs. 10,000 the proportion is reduced to
half; for incomes between Rs. 10,000 and 20,000, to one-third,
. ^ ^ and for incomes above Rs. 20,000 to one-
As to Expenses, r , t , r- ■ ..
fourth. In the case of marriages of sons other
than the eldest, or nephews and nieces and brothers of the
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 197
Thakur who are dependent for support upon him, the expendi-
ture may not exceed one-tenth of that admissible in the cases
stated above. The abuses attendant on the extravagant largess
which used to be distributed among bards and musicians on the
occasion of marriages have been got rid of by limiting this
expenditure to a percentage of Rs. 6-12-0 on the annual income
of the State, and by further restrictions limiting the number of
those who may claim such presents to the residents of the
territory in which the marriage takes place. Only the father
of the bridegroom is liable to make such payments ; the father
of the bride cannot be charged.
In the old days in Rajputana the ceremony of tikd or
betrothal was performed with great pomp and show, and the
presents made to the bridegroom's father included elephants,
horses, and camels. It was on this ceremony that the reputa-
tion of the bride's father more especially depended, and the
fortunes lavished upon it not only reduced a t b t th 1
a number of Rajputs to poverty but were
also, as the Sabha are careful to point out, " detrimental to the
future happiness of the marrying couple." The expenditure on
tikd represented in fact the price of an eligible bridegroom,
and the various social considerations affecting the market
value of husbands gave rise to unseemly haggling between the
parties to the bargain. The Committee have therefore decided
that the sending of ttka or betrothal presents should be alto-
gether stopped. The customary presents of opium, betel
leaves and other articles of trifling value are allowed to
continue, but the betrothal is to be arranged by letter only.
The rules lay down that " the usual mark or tikd shall be made
on the intended bridegroom's forehead, and betel leaves and
cocoanut together with cash not exceeding one gold mohur and
not less than one rupee shall be placed in his hand; presents of
such fruits as are usual shall be placed on his lap ; the people
present on the occasion shall also receive opium and sweet-
meats or fruits." Servants and others who have hitherto been
entitled to receive presents are to be paid according to rates
varying from Rs. S for a State worth less than Rs. 1,000, to
Rs. 100 for States worth more than Rs. 50,000. But even this
is not obligatory, and it is expressly stated that anybody may
spend less if he likes.
As has been pointed out above, the expense involved in
getting a daughter married has everywhere been the main
factor in bringing about the evils which have grown up, and
198 PEOPLE OF INDIA
this explains the prominence given in the rules to the question
of expenditure. The Society, however, did not stop there.
They plainly stated their opinion that, " as a rule, boys and
girls are married at an early age, notwithstanding that the
evils of such a custom are well known to all and need no
description." They then proceeded to lay down that boys and
... girls should not be married before the ages
As to Age. =>. , . , , . , °
of i8 and 14 respectively, and in order to
guard against evasions of this rule, they provided that a half-
yearly register of births, deaths and marriages should be kept up
and submitted to 'the special committees at the capitals of the
different States through the district officials or Nizamats. A
further rule prescribes that " whereas in this country marriage
contracts are not made by the girl's choice, her guardians being
entrusted with that dut};-, it is advisable that girls be not kept
unmarried above the age of twenty years." With the object of
discouraging polygamy, it has been ruled that no second
marriage should take place during the life-time of the first wife
unless she is afflicted with an incurable disease or has no
offspring. As regards widowers, it is laid down that when a
widower has attained the age of 45 years and has a son living,
he should not contract another marriage ; but if he is healthy
and strong, he can marry a second wife, provided that the bride
is above the age prescribed by the rules. Where, however, a
widower of 45 years has an infant child by his deceased wife
and it is difficult for him to bring up the child as well as to look
after the household affairs, the State Committee can make a
special exception to the rule after satisfying itself that it is
proper to do so.
Marriage expenses are controlled by the rule that the
number of persons accompanying a wedding party may not
exceed twenty, except in the case of marriages on a large scale
when it is to be determined at the rate of two men for every
hundred rupees that may be spent by the girl's father. The
marriage procession is to arrive at the house of the bride's
father on the day fixed for the marriage, stay there for two days
and take leave on the fourth or on the fifth day at the latest, if
the fourth day is considered inauspicious for departure.
The poverty of some classes of Rajputs has led to their
obtaining the necessary funds for their daughter's marriage from
the bridegroom's father. This the Society condemns as " a
most objectionable practice, and one that is opposed to the
Dharma Shastras." In the case, however, of those Rajputs who
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 199
have neither land nor maintenance and only earn their liveli-
hood as cultivators, it is permissible to take a bride-price of not
more than Rs. 100 from the bridegroom's father and to spend
that sum upon the marriage.
The reports submitted by the Society during the last
eighteen years show a progressive improvement in respect of
compliance with the rules. The scale on which their beneficent
influence is now being exercised may be gathered from the fact
that out of 5,038 marriages performed among Rajputs in 1903,
the rules regarding age were complied with in 4,928 cases and
were violated only in no, of which 55 occurred in the State of
Udaipur, where the tendency to stand upon the ancient ways is
probably more marked than in other parts of Rajputana. Out
of this large number of marriages the rules were infringed in
25 cases in respect of expenditure, in 17 cases in respect of
presents, to bards and musicians, and in 65 cases in respect of
the numbers of the marriage-party. When it is borne in mind
that the operations of the Society have the sanction of no
criminal law and that their success depends solely upon the
influence that can be exercised by the State Committees,
most people, I venture to think, will hold that the Walterkrit
Sabha has not only attained most remarkable results within its
own sphere of activity, but has set to the rest of India a
striking example of what can be done by patriotic combination
to promote the cause of social reform.*
Attempts have also been made to attain the same end by
legislative action. More than fourteen years
ago Mr. Manmohan Ghose, a Bengali bar- ^fose^s'scheme^'
rister in large criminal practice, put forward
a proposal that a general law should be passed for British India
"declaring that no marriage shall be valid if either of the
contracting parties at the time of celebrating their marriage is
below a certain minimum age," which he proposed to fix for
the present at twelve years. He admitted that such a measure
involved interference with the supposed marriage laws of the
Hindus, and was certain to be opposed by a great many ortho-
dox people on that ground. But he pointed out that some
doubt existed as to what was the true Hindu law on the subject,
and he observed that so eminent a Sanskrit scholar as Dr.
[* " Polygamy is said to be on the decrease in Karauli; this is ascribed partly to the
increased cost of living, and partly to the influence of the Walterkrit Hitakarini Sabha . . .
The principles underlying the rules of this Society are said to be slowly leavening some of the
other castes in Rajputana " (Census Report, 191 1, vol. i., p. 184).]
200 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Bhandarkar had held that there was really nothing in law or in
the Hindu scriptures to make it obligatory upon a Hindu to
marry his daughter before she is twelve. He added that if
Dr. Bhandarkar were right, the prevailing idea in Bengal and
elsewhere that a girl must be married before a certain period
in her life irrespective of her age was erroneous, while the fact
that the highest class of Brahmans (Kulins) frequently do not
marry their girls before they are past the age of twent3'^-one
pointed to a similar conclusion. Mr. Manmohan Ghose
considered that such a measure would have the effect of
putting down the pernicious custom of child-marriage with its
concomitant evils ; that it would meet with no serious opposi-
tion in the advanced province of Bengal ; and that it need not
be extended to backward provinces until in the opinion of the
Local Government they were ripe for such a measure. His
views found no support among his countrymen in Bengal.
Three years after the publication of Mr. Manmohan Ghose's
The M sore Aet proposal, the Mysore State introduced a
regulation to prevent infant marriages
among the Hindus in the territory of Mysore. The
scope of this enactment falls far short both of the Rajpu-
tana practice and of Mr. Manmohan Ghose's restricted
suggestion, for it defines an infant girl as a girl who has not
completed eight years of age. Any person who causes
the marriage of an infant girl or aids or abets such a
marriage, and any man over eighteen years of age who
marries an infant girl, is liable on a prosecution sanctioned
by the Government to be punished with simple imprisonment
up to six months. It is obvious, however, that so far as the
great majority of marriages are concerned, the Mysore law only
touches the fringe of the evil, since a boy under eighteen can, if
his people choose to run the risk of a prosecution, be married
to a girl under eight, and no restriction at all is placed upon
infant marriages between the ages of eight and fourteen. The
law, indeed, seems to be mainly aimed at the practice of aged
widowers marrying child-wives. Here it enacts that any man
who having completed fifty years of age marries a girl who has
not completed fourteen years of age, shall be punished with
imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend
to two years or with fine or with both. Seeing that at the age
of fourteen most girls are already married, it follows that a
man over fifty can have very little chance of securing a wife.
The Mysore Government .points to the increase of aged
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 201
widowers in the recent census as illustrating the effect of its
legislation. This, however, seems to be its sole effect. For
the census figures show that the proportion of married girls
under ten to 1,000 of the female population had varied between
1891 and 1901 only from 8 to 3, while on the other hand the
proportion of girls unmarried at that age had declined in the
same period from 281 to 275. The utmost that can be said,
therefore, is that the law passed in 1894 may have reduced
the proportion of girls married under ten by about five per
thousand.*
The Early Marriage Prevention Act passed by the State of
Baroda in July, 1904, is designed, as appears ^^^ Baroda Act.
from the preamble, " to draw the increased
attention of the public towards physical training, whereby the
future progeny may be healthy and long-lived." It defines a
minor girl as one who has not completed her twelfth year, and
a minor boy as one who has not completed his sixteenth year.
If the guardians of a minor girl, whose age is above nine, desire
to get her married, they must apply to a tribunal consisting of
the local sub-judge and three assessors of the petitioners' caste.
If the tribunal is satisfied that in the event of the marriage not
taking place on the date proposed, it will probably not take
place at all or not within one year of the bride attaining her
majority, or that the parents and guardians of the girl are not
likely, owing to old age and infirmity, to survive until she
comes of age, and that she has no other guardian, or that
inevitable difficulties of a similar nature are likely to occur,
they may grant permission for the marriage to take place. If
the sub-judge disagrees with the assessors, the case is referred
to the district judge, whose decision appears to be final. The
following comments on the working of the Act appear in the
Baroda Administration Report for 1904-5 : —
" People living outside the limits of this State have an
inadequate conception of the degree to which public opinion
influences legislation in Baroda. The utmost consideration is
shown to such opinion ; and His Highness the Maharaja con-
sented to reduce the limit of age for the marriage of girls from
14 to 12 in deference to the popular wish. Other modifications
[* During the past sixteen years (1895-6 — 1910-1) the total number of cases prosecuted
under the Regulation was 202, of which 175 resulted in the conviction of 475 persons.
"The present piece of legislation in Baroda is much more advanced than in Mysore, and
much further ahead of current notions and practices among the people at large. It has
already been pointed out that, as regards early marriage, the recent Census figures are more
favourable to Mysore than to Baroda " (Census Report, Mysore, 1911, vol. i., p. 97.)]
202 PEOPLE OF INDIA
were also made in the original Bill, so as to make it less
obnoxious to orthodox communities.
'^Results of the Early Marriage Prevention Ad. — It is now
over a year since the Act for the Prevention of Early Marriages
came into operation, and it would not be without interest to
take stock of the results achieved during this first year of its
operation. That freedom to contract marriages within the
prohibited limits of age, with the permission
working.* of the Civil Courts, has been freely availed
of, would appear from the fact that no less
than 695 applications were presented for such license ; and the
circumstance that such permission was accorded to 68 per
cent, of such petitions, shows a liberal and sympathetic solici-
tude on the part of the Courts for the religious and social
susceptibilities of the people. Some leniency was desirable in
the first year of the execution of this law, to which the people
had not been accustomed. At the same time it was necessary
to enforce the new law, so that it might not be regarded as
a dead letter; and 718 offenders were punished with fines, in
sums ranging from one rupee to twenty-five rupees, during
the year in the whole State. Seventy-eight per cent, of the
fines inflicted under this Act fell below five rupees, and only
four per cent, exceeded ten rupees. No better proof can be
afforded of the indulgence with which offences against this
special enactment have been dealt with.
" The Act has already had a wholesome educative effect on
the higher classes of the Hindu society ; for we find that the
percentage of convictions among the three higher castes did
not exceed five. The largest number of oiTenders belonged to
the Dhed and Bhangi classes, which had no less than 39 per
cent, of convictions against them. The Kunbis or the culti-
vating classes had only 11 per cent, while the artisan classes
had also an equal number. The percentage among Brahmans
and Banias was less than two, and that among Mahomedans
was about four — a circumstance which clearly proves that it is
only custom, and no religious behest or scriptural text, which
supports the practice of early marriages. And when once the
force of usage is broken, the progress of the desired reform is
smoothed and accelerated even beyond our most sanguine
expectations."*
[* The results of this Act during the last decade in Baroda have proved unsatisfactory.
The slight decrease in the number of infant marriages " may be attributed to the progress of
education and enlightened ideas." Numerous applications for exemption from its provisions
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 203
The latest scheme for reforming the marriage usages of
India by means of legislation is that put
forward by Sardar Arjun Singh of Kapur- sSrstSeme.
thala at a meeting of the East India Asso-
ciation held in London on the 31st July, 1905, and published in
the Asiatic Quarterly Review for October, 1905. The Sardar
sums up his proposals in the following words : —
"Allowing that the Government interference is not desirable,
has not the Government got other means to eradicate, or at
least to mitigate, the custom of early marriages, and thus save
the female children, or, at least a proportion of them, from
improper widowhood?
" Let the Government pass an Act, the operative part of
which may be somewhat in the following form ': —
" I. This Act shall apply («) to those persons only who
belong to such caste, out-caste, religion, or community, which,
after holding public meetings, p^ass a resolution to come under
the protection of this Act ; {b) to those districts only in which
such meetings shall have been held for such purpose.
" 2. Under this Act, no marriage shall have the legal force,
unless at the date of marriage the husband has completed his
twelfth and the wife her tenth year.
"Let the Government also exert its influence on different
castes and communities in every district to hold meetings and
come to a definite conclusion.
" By such an action on the part of the Government we may
be sure that almost every caste, every religion, and every com-
munity in the whole of India, by the influence of the Govern-
ment and under the leadership of educated people, will, with
great pleasure, place itself under this Act.
" The Government will do immense good to the well-being
were made, and the result of them proves that "the Courts are very indulgent in their treat-
ment of applications for exemption, which may be said to be practically given for the asking."
On the introduction of the Act " there was unusual activity in hurrying up marriage before the
expected restraint was imposed . . . Probably it is yet too premature to judge of the salu-
tary effects of this beneficent enactment" (Census Report, Baroda, 191 1, vol. i., p. 154
et seq.). To this may be added the remarkable custom of the Kadva Kunbis of Gujarat,
who, in order to reduce marriage expenses, celebrate the marriages of the whole caste on a
single day {Census Reports, Baroda, 191 1, vol. i., pp. 173, 290, 307 ; Bombay, 1911, vol. i.,
p. 242), A similar custom prevails among the Nambutiri Brahmans of South India, who
marry two or three girls to a single man so as to avoid payment of the heavy bridegroom-
price, and some KonkanI Brahmans now invest the dowry in the name of the bride, and
thus prevent waste at the marriage celebration (L. K. Anantha Krishna Iyer, Cochin Tribes
and Castes, vol. ii., 1912, pp. 210, 354; E. Thurston, Castes and Tribes of Southern India,
1909, vol. ii., p. 93).]
204 PEOPLE OF INDIA
of the whole country, save 115,285 girls from child-widowhood
every ten years, and shall win the hearts of the people."
This projet de hi met with a rather chilling reception from
the Indian speakers at the meeting. One Hindu gentleman
"thought it was high time the Government interfered. If the
matter was to be left at the option of the people, it would
require centuries before .the position of the Indian woman
would be uplifted and the custom of early marriages obliterated.
It would be a pity to wait so long when the
^'"^'of il'^''^ same thing could be done by Government in
a shorter time." A Muhammadan followed
with the pertinent observation that "every one who had
received English education agreed that the custom was
pernicious ; every one would like to see it abolished ; but
many friends of his, who had studied at the Universities,
when they went back to India, were entirely unable to stem
the tide of public opinion. Why was that ? It was because
the ladies of the house did not agree with them, and they did
not carry female opinion with them." This led him to the
conclusion that " it would be far better to have no legislation
on the subject, but to work out their own ideas, and to feel
that they had been the authors of their own salvation." It
was now the turn of a Hindu to point out that the Arya
Samajists were even more advanced in this matter than the
Brahmos and had " declared that any marriage of a boy under
twenty-five and a girl under sixteen was unauthorized by law,
was against religion, and was to a certain extent immoral ; "
while the authorities of the Central Hindu College at Benares
"had ruled that no married boy would be admitted to their
school." The speaker expressed himself as opposed to
legislation, and was supported in this by a Muhammadan who
took the opportunity of protesting against the lecturer's
conjecture that infant marriage was devised by the Hindus
to secure their young women from the outrages of invaders
from Central Asia. Finally, the Chairman, Sir Lepel Griffin,
summed up the debate in a speech of admirable discretion,
in the course of which he admitted that it was news to him
to hear that the Mysore and Baroda States had legislated on
the subject, and intimated a doubt whether the lecturer's
proposal to fix the minimum age at twelve for boys and ten
for girls would not be " almost a retrogade step."
It is perhaps a little surprising that a meeting of this kind,
with a distinguished ex-political officer in the chair, should
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 205
not have been aware that the very problem which they were
engaged in discussing had been successfully approached in
Rajputana nearly twenty years ago. In the face of that
illustration of what people can do for themselves we may be
absolved from discussing in detail the scheme for permissive
legislation propounded by Sardar Arjun Singh. Few persons
will share its author's belief, so characteristic of the modern
Indian, in the efficacy of a public meeting as an instrument
of social reform ; while no one can fail to be struck by the
pathetic admission of one of his critics that
young men brought up on English history ■^'"reftTrm. °^
and literature, and more or less imbued with
European ideas of domestic morality, find their worst foes in
the ladies of their own households. The fact, of course, is
that in matters of this kind the Anglicised middle classes are
hardly in a position to give a decisive lead. Their social
standing is not such as to command universal respect, and
their orthodoxy is often open to suspicion. The people who
can exercise a real influence and set an example that will be
followed are, in the first place, the ancient aristocracy of
India, the men who in Rajputana have created and carried
on the Walterkrit Sabha. Below them, as the working agents
who will transmit to the masses the impulsive proceeding
from their natural leaders, come the panchayats or caste
councils, the caste and clan Brahmans, the genealogists and
astrologers, the village barbers, and the professional match
makers, male and female, who conduct- the elaborate process
of haggling by which Hindu marriages are put on the market.
The influence of the ghataks or marriage brokers is very great.
Five hundred years ago a famous ghatak remodelled for
matrimonial purposes the highest sub-caste of Bengal Brahmans,
and his classification holds good to the present day. The
caste councils, which bear a sort of resemblance to a club
committee, are equally powerful, and perhaps more accessible
than the ghataks to liberal ideas. Both have the utmost
respect for the Hindu scriptures coupled with the scantiest
knowledge of their contents, and reforms on the Rajputana
lines might with equal regard for truth and expediency be
presented to their minds as a revival of pristine usage making
for ceremonial righteousness.*
[* " A society, called the Hindu Marriage Reform League, has been started by Hindu gentle-
men in Calcutta with the object of raising the age, at which girls can be given in marriage,
to 16 years. Till recently such attempts have been made only by the higher castes, but the
206 PEOPLE OF INDIA
In favour of legislation, some people will doubtless urge
that in the East where so many things are, according to
Western ideas, upside down, the relations between positive
law and positive morality are also reversed. In Europe, one
is told, morality must always be in advance of law. It took
generations of quibbles and all the efforts of Bentham and
Romilly to lift the English criminal law to a level approaching
that of the conventional ethics of the day. In India, it will
be said, if law is to wait until popular morality is ready,
things will remain as they are until the end
legislation? ^^ time. To this it may be replied first, that
in Rajputana the end in view is being attained
without the intervention of the State ; secondly, that the
Mysore and Baroda laws hardly rise above the level of popular
usage, and may well have the effect of impeding reform by
stereotyping the very conditions which it is desirable to
improve ; thirdly, that there is very little to show that these
enactments are not a dead letter; fourthly, that any law
dealing with this subject cannot, in the nature of things, be
restricted to a particular class. Its operation must be general,
and it would be liable to be defeated by the ancient and familiar
device of boycotting the advocates of premature reform.
Exclusive dealing in husbands cannot -be put down by law.
It may or may not be possible to compel a Tipperary grocer
to sell sugar to a man who has taken a boycotted tenement ;
it would certainly be impossible to compel an Indian father
to give his son to a girl whose parents had forgotten to get
her married at the proper time.
Two forms of polyandry are recognized in the literature
of the subject : the fraternal, where a woman becomes the
joint wife of several brothers ; and the matriarchal, where she
has a number of husbands who are not necessarily related to
each other. The essential feature is that the woman lives
with several men at the same time. If her husbands are not
synchronous but successive, if she lives with one husband
for a year or so and then takes another, the arrangement may
movement is spreading downwards. A general conference of the Namasudras held in igo8,
resolved that any one marrying a son under 20 or a daughter under 10 years of age should
be excommunicated. This resolution has had some effect, for it is reported in the Narail
sub-division of Jessore, the age of a bride varies from 8 to 11, and that of a bridegroom from
16 to 20. In this sub-division it has further been determined that no Namasudra parent
shall take more than Rs. 30 for a daughter, and, if he is in affluent circumstances, nothing
at all" [Census Report, Bengal, 191 1, vol. i., p. 319).]
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 207
be morally reprehensible, but it is not what is meant by poly-
andry. Under both systems there is neces-
sarily extreme uncertainty as to the parent- '^^po^and^.^ °^
age of the joint wife's children. Where the
matriarchal form of polyandry prevails, this uncertainty affects
the law of succession to property, since it is impossible to
prove that a man living in a polyandrous group has ever had
any children of his own. Consequently inheritance is traced
through females, and a man's ordinary heir-at-law is his sister's
son. Where fraternal polyandry is in fashion, the problem
of paternity is equally obscure, and it is impossible to say
for certain which of the brothers is the father of a particular
child. But for working purposes it is assumed that one of
them must be, and therefore the children belong to the same
exogamous group as their fathers and inheritance to the joint
property is reckoned in the male line.
There is abundant evidence to prove that . matriarchal
polyandry was at one time an established custom among the
Nayars of the Malabar coast. Thus Caesar Fredericke, who
travelled in those parts in the year 1563, writes of them :
"These men go naked from the girdle upwards, with a
clothe rolled about their thighs, going barefooted, and having
their haire very long and rolled up together on the toppe of
their heads, and alwayes they carrie their Bucklers or Targets
with them and their swordes naked, these Nairi have their
wives common amongst themselves, and when any of them
goe into the house of any of these women, he leaveth his
sworde and target at the doore, and the time
that he is there, there dare not be any so ^oiyLndry.*
hardie as to come into that house. The
King's children shall not inherite the kingdom after their father,
because they hold this opinion, that perchance they were not
begotten of the King their father, but of some ■ other m&n,
therefore they accept for their King one of the sonnes of the
King's sisters, or of some other woman of the blood roiall,
for that they be sure that they are of the blood roiall." *
The Portuguese traveller, Fernao Lopes de Castanheda,
says much the same:t "By the laws of this country these
Nayars cannot marry, so that no one has any certain or
* The voyage and travell of M. Csesar Fredericke, Marchant of Venice, into the East
India and beyond the Indies : translated out of Italian by Mr. Thomas Hickocke. Hakluyt,
Voyages, V., 394.
t Historia de descobrimento e conquista da India pelos Portuguezes, 1551-1561.
2o8 PEOPLE OF INDIA
acknowledged son or father ; all their children being born of
mistresses, with each of which three or four Nayars cohabit by
agreement among themselves. Each one of this confraternity
dwells a day in his turn with the joint mistress, counting from
noon of one day to the same time of the next, after which he
departs, and another comes for the like time. They thus spend
their lives without the care or trouble of wives and children,
yet maintain their mistresses well, according to their rank.
Any one may forsake his mistress at his pleasure, and in the
like manner the mistress may refuse admittance to any one of
her lovers when she pleases. These mistresses are all gentle-
women of the Nayar caste, and the Nayars, besides being
prohibited from marrying, must not attach themselves to any
woman of a different rank. Considering that there are always
several men attached to one woman, the Nayars never look
upon any of the children born of their mistresses as belonging
to them, however strong a resemblance may subsist, and all
inheritances among the Nayars go to their brothers or the
sons of their sisters born of the same mothers, all relationship
being counted only by female consanguinity and descent. This
strange law prohibiting marriage was established that they
might have neither wives nor children on whom to fix their love
and attachment and that, being free from all family cares, they
might the more willingly devote themselves to warlike service."
A series of observers, among whom may be mentioned
Alexander Hamilton (1744), Jonathan Duncan (1792), Francis
Buchanan (1807), James Forbes (1813), and the Lutheran Mis-
sionary Graul (1849-1853), confirm the accounts given by the
travellers of the sixteenth century. During the last fifty years,
however, polyandry in the strict sense of the term seems to
have fallen into disuse. Mr. Fawcett, of the Madras police,
writing in 1901, says that he has "not known any admitted
instance of polyandry amongst the Nayars of Malabar at the
present day," * and twenty years earlier Mr. Wigram wrote in
his treatise on " Malabar Law and Custom" as follows :— ;
" Polyandry may now be said to be dead, and although the
issue of a Nayar marriage are still children of their mother
rather than of their father, marriage may be defined as a con-
tract based on mutual consent, and dissoluble at will. It has
been well said (by Mr. Logan) that nowhere is the marriage
tie, albeit informal, more rigidly observed or respected than it
[* BtMeiin Madras Government Museum, vol. iii., No. 3, p. 241.]
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 209
is in Malabar : nowhere is it more jealously guarded, or its
neglect more savagely avenged."
It is a peculiar and characteristic feature of Nayar matri-
monial usage that every woman goes through two forms of
marriage. The first, tali kettu or tying of the tali, is purely
ceremonial, and must take place before a girl attains puberty.
Its essential incident consists in the nominal husband tying
round her neck a tiny plate of gold shaped like the leaf of the
Indian fig tree. The accompanying ritual is costly, and to
neglect it entails social ostracism. Consequently, for eco-
nomical reasons, one man is often engaged to tie the tali on
a number of girls of all ages from three months to twelve years.
Having played his part in the ritual and received the customary
fee, the ceremonial husband goes his way and
is never heard of again. His functions are husband™*^
purely formal, and he has no conjugal rights
over any of the girls whom he has technically married.
Opinions differ as to the origin of the tali kettu marriage, and
some observers regard it as a Brahman innovation of com-
paratively recent date. A different explanation is suggested
by Capt. Hamilton's statement that " when the Zamorin marries,
he must not cohabit with his bride till the Nambourie, or chief
priest, has enjoyed her, and, if he pleases, may have three
nights of her company, because the first fruits of her nuptials
must be an holy oblation to the god she worships. And some
of the nobles are so complaisant as to allow the clergy the
same tribute, but the common people cannot have that com-
pliment paid them, but are forced to supply the priests' places
themselves."* It seems possible that the ceremony may be
a survival of a primitive taboo on virginity which has in course
of time become purely formal and has been overlaid by obser-
vances borrowed from Hindu sources. This view derives some
support from the fact that the ritual resembles in certain
respects that which is used for the consecration of a Deva-Ddsi
or temple prostitute.
On attaining physical maturity a Nayar girl contracts a
second marriage variously known as Sambandhain (association) ;
guna dosham (for better for worse) ; pudavamnri (the giving of
a cloth) ; kitakoram (the marriage of the bed).
The ceremony is of the simplest kind and ^h^usband^^
consists mainly in the bridegroom present-
ing betelnut, clothes, and money to the bride at night in the
[* Ed. 1744, vol. i., p. 310.]
R, PI 14
2IO PEOPLE OF INDIA
bridal chamber before her female relatives. As to the negotia-
tions which precede it opinions seem to differ. One authority
describes it as " generally effected with mutual consent," while
another says that "in most cases the bride and bridegroom
are utter strangers to each other until this night." All agree
that Sambandham is followed by consummation, and that it is
terminable at the will of either party. Frivolous divorces,
however, are said to be rare and to be discouraged by public
opinion and by the influence of the karnavan, the autocratic
head of the Malabar tarwdd, a joint family tracing its descent in
the female line from a common ancestress. Where the husband
can afford it, his wife lives with him ; in other cases she lives
with her tarwdd and he visits her there — a plain survival of the
earlier conditions described above. The children are usually
educated by the tarwdd.
Taking the evidence as a whole, it seems to point to the
conclusion that within the last two or three generations the
refining influence of higher education has induced the Nayars
to abandon the practice of polyandry and to attach to the Sam-
bandham connexion the full sanctity of a monogamous union.
Their marriage ritual and their law of inheritance still retain
unmistakable traces of polyandrous usage, but the tendency is
to relegate these to the background. A series of judicial
decisions have given to any member of a Malabar joint family
the absolute disposal during his lifetime of property acquired
by himself, and recent legislation has enabled him to bequeath
such property by will to his children by his Sambandham wife.
In the Himalayan region where fraternal polyandry is in
Fraternal poly- vogue, there are no indications of any moral
andry in Titoet and revolt against the system, unless indeed the
^™' germs of such a feeling may be traced in the
slight shyness which people are apt to display when questioned
on the subject, and in their manifest preference for discussing
the connubial arrangements of some family other than their
own. In Western Tibet even these faint signs of grace are
wanting, and the account given by the latest observer points
to the prevalence of considerable sexual depravity.
"Each household contains for all practical purposes three
or four families,* and one can imagine the atmosphere in which
the children are brought up with polyandry all round them,
and when the time comes for a girl to enter another similar
household, and be the bride of numerous brothers, it may truly
* Charles A. Sherring, Western Tibet and t/te British Borderland, 1906, p. igo.
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 211
be said that there is no modesty left in her. Merchants and
officials from Lhasa can anywhere get women throughout
Western Tibet to live with them temporarily for the mere
asking, even of the best local families."
At the time of the last Census polyandry as practised in
Sikkim and Eastern Tibet was enquired into by Mr. Earle,
then Deputy-Commissioner of Darjeeling, on the basis of a
set of questions drawn up by me in 1891. The information
collected was carefully verified and may be regarded as sub-
stantially correct.
" If the eldest of a group of brothers marries a woman, she
is regarded as the common wife of all the brothers. It does
not, however, necessarily follow that she will cohabit with all
the younger brothers. She exercises much liberty in this
respect, and it will depend upon her pleasure as to whether
she will cohabit with any particular younger brother. If the
eldest brother {i.e., the real husband) dies, the wife passes to
one of the younger brothers according to her own selection.
Should her choice fall on the next brother, she will still be the
common wife of the younger brothers. Should, however, she
select any of the younger brothers, she will be the common
wife only of those younger than him, and, if he be the youngest,
she will be his wife only. If the eldest brother of a group of
brothers does not marry, but the second or third brother does
so, then the wife will be the common wife of such second or
third brother and his younger brothers only. Elder brothers,
in such cases, will separate and leave the family, having no
claim on the wives of the younger brothers. Cousins, both
on the father's and mother's side, and half-brothers may be
admitted as members of the group of brothers only if the
husband agrees and has no brothers of his own. Several
cousins cannot take a wife between them except in the instance
just quoted. There are instances in the Darjeeling district,
but apparently not in Sikkim or Tibet, of a number of men,
not brothers or near relations, taking a wife between them, but
this appears to be a novel practice introduced for purposes
of economy. There appears to be no tradition of any such
custom in Sikkim and Tibet in former times." Property
descends in the male line, and there are no traces of .inheritance
through a sister's son. The eldest brother counts as the father
of the joint wife's children and the other brothers are spoken
of as their uncles.
When asked about the origin of the custom, people usually
212 PEOPLE OF INDIA
give sumptuary reasons recalling those which have given rise
to the suspicion that fraternal polyandry was
polyandry. "ot unknown among the Venetian nobility of
the sixteenth century. One is told that a man
who is too particular to share a wife with his brethren must
pay for the luxury of a household of his own in the form of
a separate assessment to revenue; that polyandry keeps the
family property together, that it promotes harmony among
the brothers, and so forth. I have never heard it assigned to
a scarcity of women, and there is no reason to believe that the
proportion of the sexes in Sikkim and Tibet is not fairly
equal.* Religious zeal, however, encourages professed celibacy
especially among the men, and according to Mr. Earle "super-
fluous women become nuns or prostitutes or remain single." t
We may conclude this chapter with a brief glance at the
statistics of the subject which are alive with human interest.
From the point of view of the European old maid India seems
at first sight a sort of connubial paradise, where the selfishness
of male celibacy is condemned by religion
marriage. ^^^ discouraged by fashion, and every girl
who is not physically disqualified for mar-
riage may count with certainty upon finding a husband. Of
the entire female population between the ages of fifteen and
twenty, four out of every five are married, while in the more
critical period from twenty to thirty only one woman out of
seven remains single. The Eden so easily won is, however,
quickly lost ; even in India males marry later than females, and
the disparity of ages finds expression in the figures, which show-
that among women of all ages more than one in six is a widow,
while in the case of men the corresponding proportion is only
[* Ladakh Proper, and the other Mongoloid races in Kashmir show the highest pro-
portion of women in the State [Census Report, 1911, vol. i., p. 125).]
[t Comparing the Bahimi of Central Africa with the Todas of India, Sir J. Frazer
(Tofemism and Exogamy, 1910, vol. ii., p. 539 et sej.) suggests that "there is something
in the pastoral life which favours the growth of abnormal relations between the sexes. . . .
The superstition which debars these people from a vegetable diet not only impoverishes
them, and retards economic progress by presenting a serious obstacle to the adoption of
agriculture ; it affects society in another and curious way by fostering a type of marriage
which effectually checks the growth of population, and which can hardly fail to be injurious
to the women and thereby to their offspring." On the other hand, E. S. Hartland [Primitive
Paternity, vol. ii., 1910, p. 162 et seq.) denies that polyandry results from economic causes,
' ' in face of the evidence from all parts of the world of indifference to what the civilized
peoples of Europe generally regard as womanly virtue." He believes that it results from the
general absence of marital jealousy among backward races, and he suggests that women
exercise >■- powerful influence in support of the customs. For further discussion of the
question see Census PeJ>ort, India, 191 1, vol. i., p. 238 et seq.'\
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 213
one in eighteen. In England, where from three-fifths to two-
thirds of both sexes are single and not more than a third are
married, the proportion of the widowed is only one in thirty
for males and one in thirteen for females. The actual number
of widows in India in 1901 was nearly twenty-six millions, while
the widowers numbered only eighteen millions. Between the
ages of forty and sixty every other woman is a widow, and
even at the earlier period of from thirty to forty, one woman
in five finds herself in the same unfortunate condition.
These general characteristics — the universality of marriage,
the prevalence of early marriage, and the frequency of pre-
mature widowhood — are in the case of Hindus accentuated by
the influence of religion or inviolable usage. Both sexes marry
earlier than is the case with the population , „. ,
. , . ."^ "^ , Among Hindus,
at large, and of the unmarried girls only one
in every fourteen has turned her fifteenth year. Nearly half of
the girls between the ages of ten and fifteen are married, while
of those between fifteen and twenty only one-fifth have failed
to find husbands. This vision of domestic felicity is clouded
by the fact that one in every five Hindu women is a widow.
Many of them are condemned to a life of penance and humilia-
tion at a comparatively early age, while some are mere infants
who have never known their husbands and have had no chance
of bearing a child.
Judged by a European standard, the matrimonial relations
of the Muhammadans are less abnormal than those of the
Hindus. Marriage is a civil function ; its cost is not swollen
by the demands of a swarm of greedy priests ; the field of
selection is larger and is less affected by artificial restrictions
relating to social status ; and there is no bar to widows marry-
ing again. The males marry later in life, and the pitiful
spectacle of a struggling student hampered by a wife and
children while he is still cramming for University examinations
is less frequent than among Hindus. In
the case of females the contrast is still more Mtihammadans.
marked. Among Muhammadan girls be-
tween the ages of five and ten only seven per cent, are married
compared with twelve per cent, among Hindus; while between
ten and fifteen the proportion of child-wives is thirty-nine for
Muhammadans and forty-seven for Hindus. The marriage
expenses are on a less extravagant scale ; bridegrooms are not
bought and sold for fantastic prices ; and the balance of the
sexes is not disturbed by the pernicious custom of hypergamy.
214 PEOPLE OF INDIA
In respect of widowhood the Muhammadans are also more
favourably situated. It is true that the descendants of Hindu
converts, and especially the Jolaha weavers and Dhuniya wool-
carders, are not free^from the Hindu prejudice against the re-
marriage of widows. But this feeling finds no support from the
religion and traditions of Islam and is rebuked by the example
of the Prophet himself. It is therefore weaker and less general
than among Hindus, and unions between widowers and widows
are recognized as legitimate and even appropriate. These
influences are reflected in the statistics, which show only ten per
cent, of widows among women between fifteen and forty, while
in the case of Hindus the proportion is as high as fourteen.
P.S. — Since this chapter was in type public attention has
been drawn to the subject of Kulin polygamy by an animated
correspondence in the columns of the Times. Those who are
curious in these matters will find in Appendix VIII some
extracts from letters by Sir Henry Cotton, Sir George Bird-
wood, Sir G. Grierson, Mr. John Christian, and Mr. Bernard
Shaw, together with the report of the Committee appointed in
1867 by the Bengal Government to inquire into the subject
with reference to a proposal for legislation which was made by
the Maharaja of Burdwan and the well-known Hindu reformer,
Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar.
Without following Mr, Bernard Shaw in his rather advanced
suggestions for the breeding of the Super-Man, any one who
approaches the question from a scientific point of view may be
permitted to join with him and Sir George Birdwood in con-
demning as insular and inappropriate the tone of virtuous in-
dignation that appears in some of the letters in the Times.
The merest glance at the vast literature which is occupied with
the origin of human marriage ought to convince most reason-
able people that all sorts of connubial permutations and com-
binations have been in vogue in different times and places, and
that these have resulted, not from any innate depravity on the
part of those who practised them, but from the action of some
overmastering social force which disturbed the balance of the
sexes and brought about matrimonial connexions which we
now regard as more or less abnormal. If, then, Kulin polygamy
is nothing more than an unhappy but inevitable consequence
of exaggerated hypergamy, is it quite rational to denounce the
unfortunate victims of a perverted system for preferring a
fractional share in an itinerant husband to the reproach of
CASTE AND MARRIAGE 215
having no husband at all and to the painful repression of the
craving for maternity which is nowhere stronger than in India?
To treat the symptom does not necessarily cure the disease,
although it may induce new symptoms. Supposing Kulin
polygamy to be effectively abolished by repressive legislation
or social disapproval, the surplus of marriageable girls result-
ing from hypergamy would still remain. What is to become
of them ? European experience suggests that enforced celibacy
on a large scale is not invariably an ideal condition. If, there-
fore, a fresh set of evils is to be avoided, the reformers would
do wisely to follow Mr. Girindra Nath Dutt's advice and strike
boldly at hypergamy, whatever form it may assume. This
they can only deal with themselves, since legislation on the
subject would plainly be futile. Indigenous complaints demand
indigenous remedies.
Whatever may be the case in Bengal, the following extract
from the recently published District Gazetteer seems to be con-
clusive as to the existence of polygamy among the Brahmans
of MuzafFarpur, a district forming part of the ancient tract of
Mithila, whence, according to Mr. Girindra Nath Dutt, the
system of Kulinism was borrowed some centuries ago by the
Brahmans of Bengal. Most of the MuzafFarpur Brahmans
belong to the Maithil or Tirhutiya sub-caste, which is divided
into five hypergamous groups — Srotriya or Sote, Jog, Panji-
baddh, Nagar and Jaiwar. The men of each group may take
wives from the groups ranking below it in this scale of social
precedence, but the women can only marry in their own or in
a higher group.
" Polygamy," says Mr. O'Malley, the author of this interest-
ing volume, "is practised among these Brahmans by the
Bikauwa or 'Vendor' — a class of Maithil Brahmans who derive
their name from the practice of selling themselves, or more
rarely their minor sons, to the daughters of the lower groups
of the series given above. Some have as many as forty or
fifty wives, who live with their own parents and are visited at
intervals by their husbands. Bikauwa Brahmans who have
married into the lower classes are not received on equal terms
by the members of their own class, but the women whom they
marry consider themselves raised by the alliance. The price
paid for a Bikauwa varies according to the class to which he
belongs and the means of the family of the girl whom he is to
marry. It may be as little as Rs. 20 : it has been known to rise
as high as Rs. 6,000." *
[* On polygamy in Bengal see Census Report, 1911, vol. i., p. 326 et sef.']
CHAPTER V
CASTE AND RELIGION
Notre vie est du vent tissu.
JOUBERT.
Alles Vergangliche
1st nur ein Gleichniss.
Goethe.
In India, as in the greater part of the East, religion is still a
power for good or for evil, and has over the minds of men an
empire which in modern Europe has long passed out of its
hands. Assisted by the kindred agency of fiction, it exercises
a subtle influence on family ritual and domestic usage, and
through these tends insensibly to modify and transform the
internal structure of Indian society. At the risk of driving
patient analogy too hard, we may perhaps
^*of cMte*^°'^ venture to compare the social gradations of
the Indian caste system to a series of geo-
logical deposits. The successive strata in each series occupy
a definite position, determined by the manner of their formation,
and the varying customs in the one may be said to represent
the fossils in the other. The lowest castes preserve the most
primitive usages, just as the oldest geological formations
contain the simplest forms of organic life. Thus the totems or
animal-names by which the animistic races regulate their
matrimonial arrangements, give place, as we travel upwards in
the social scale, to group-names based upon local and territorial
distinctions, while in the highest castes kinship is reckoned by
descent from personages closely resembling the eponymous
heroes of early Greek tradition. Even the destructive agencies,
to which the imperfection of the geological record is attributed,
have their parallel in the transforming influences by which the
two great religions of modern India, Hinduism and Islam, have
modified the social order. A curious contrast may be discerned
CASTE AND RELIGION 217
in their methods of working and in the results which they
produce.
Islam is a force of the volcanic sort, a burning and inte-
grating force, which, under favourable con- Hinduism and
ditions, may even make a nation. It melts islam,
and fuses together a whole series of tribes, and reduces their
internal structure to one uniform pattern, in which no survivals
of pre-existing usages can be detected. The separate strata
disappear ; their characteristic fossils are crushed out of recog-
nition ; and a solid mass of law and tradition occupies their
place. Hinduism, transfused as it is by mysticism and ecstatic
devotion, and resting ultimately on the esoteric teachings of
transcendental philosophy, knows nothing of open proselytism
or forcible conversion, and attains its ends in a different and
more subtle fashion, for which no precise analogue can be
found in the physical world. It leaves existing aggregates
very much as they were, and so far from welding them together,
after the manner of Islam, into larger cohesive aggregates,
tends rather to create an indefinite number of fresh groups ;
but every tribe that passes within the charmed circle of Hin-
duism inclines sooner or later to abandon its more primitive
usages or to clothe them in some Brahmanical disguise. The
strata, indeed, remain, or are multiplied ; their relative positions
are, on the whole, unaltered ; only their fossils are metamor-
phosed into more advanced forms. One by one the ancient
totems drop off, or are converted by a variety of ingenious
devices into respectable personages of the standard mythology ;
the fetish gets a new name, and is promoted to the Hindu
Pantheon in the guise of a special incarnation of one of the
greater gods; the tribal chief sets up a family priest, starts
a more or less romantic family legend, and in course of time
blossoms forth as a new variety of Rajput. His people follow
his lead, and make haste to sacrifice their women at the shrine
of social distinction. Infant-marriage with all its attendant
horrors is introduced ; widows are forbidden to marry again ;
and divorce, which plays a great, and on the whole, a useful
part in tribal society, is summarily abolished. Throughout all
these changes, which strike deep into the domestic life of the
people, the fiction is maintained that no real change has taken
place, and every one believes, or affects to believe, that things
are with them as they have been since the beginning of time.
It is curious to observe that the operation of these ten-
dencies has been quickened, and the sphere of their action
218 ■ PEOPLE OF INDIA
enlarged, by the great extension of railways which has taken
place in India during the last few years.
^^reuglon^*"^ Both Benares and Manchester have been
brought nearer to their customers, and have
profited by the increased demand for their characteristic wares.
Siva and Krishna drive out the tribal gods as surely as grey
shirtings displace the less elegant but more durable hand-woven
cloth. Pilgrimages become more pleasant and more popular,
and the touts, who sally forth from the great religious centres
to promote these pious excursions, find their task easier and
their clients more open to persuasion than was the case even
twenty years ago. A trip to Jagannath or Gaya is no longer
the formidable and costly undertaking that it was. The Hindu
peasant who is pressed to kiss the footprints of Vishnu, or to
taste the hallowed rice that has been offered to the Lord of the
World, may now reckon the journey by days instead of months.
He need no longer sacrifice the savings of a lifetime to his
pious object, and he has a reasonable prospect of returning
home none the worse for a week's indulgence in religious
enthusiasm. Even the distant Mecca has been brought, by
means of competing lines of steamers, within the reach of the
faithful in India; and the influence of Muhammadan mission-
aries and returned pilgrims has made itself felt in a quiet but
steady revival of orthodox usage all over the country.
Rapidly as these levelling and centralizing forces do their
work, a considerable residue of really primitive usage still
resists their transforming influence. The oldest of the religions
recorded in the last Census, if indeed it can.be called a religion
at all, is the medley of heterogeneous and uncomfortable
superstitions now known by the. not entirely appropriate name
of Animism. The difficulty of defining this mixed assortment
of primitive ideas is illustrated by the fact that there is no
name for it in any of the Indian languages. For Census pur-
poses, therefore, recourse must be had to the clumsy device of
instructing the enumerators that in the case of tribes who are
neither Hindus nor Muhammadans, but have no word for their
religious beliefs, the name of the tribe itself must be entered in
the column for religion. Thus one and the same religion
figures in the original returns of the Census under as many
different designations as there are tribes professing it. On
turning to the European literature of the subject we find
that even among scientific observers the curiously indetermi-
nate character of the beliefs in question has' given rise to
CASTE AND RELIGION 219
considerable diversity of nomenclature. Three different names,
each dwelling on a different aspect of the subject, have obtained
general acceptance, and an attempt has been made to introduce
a fourth which seeks to accentuate characteristics overlooked
by the rest.
The earliest and best-known name, Fetishism, was first
brought into prominence by Charles de Brosses, President of
the Parliament of Burgundy, who published in 1760 a book
called Du Culte des Dieux FMiches, ou Parallele de I'ancienne
Religion de I'Egypte avec la Religion actuelle de la Nigritie.
De Brosses was a man of very various learning. He ranked
high in his day among the historians of the Roman Republic ;
he wrote a scientific treatise on the origin of language ; he is
recognized as one of the founders of the modern school of
anthropological mythology ; and he is believed to have invented
the names Australia and Polynesia. He did not, however,
invent, nor was he even the first to use, the word fetish, which
is a variant of the Portuguese /e^^^'fo or /etoso, . , .
an amulet or talisman, derived from the
hatm faditius, "artificial," "unnatural," and hence "magical."
It was employed, naturally enough, by the Portuguese navi-
gators of the sixteenth century to describe the worship of
stocks and stones, charms, and a variety of queer and unsavoury
objects, which struck them as the chief feature of the religion
of the negroes of the Gold Coast. Nor did de Brosses travel
so far on the path of generalization as some of his followers.
He assumed indeed that Fetishism was the beginning of all
religion, since no lower form could be conceived ; but he did
not extend its domain like Bastholm, who in 1805 claimed as
fetishes " everything produced by nature or art which receives
divine honour, including sun, moon, earth, air, fire, water,
mountains, rivers, trees, stones, images, and animals if con-
sidered as objects of divine worship."
For some five and twenty years after Bastholm wrote, the
term Fetishism lay buried in the special literature of anthro-
pology, whence it seems to have been unearthed by Auguste
Comte, who used it, in connexion with his famous loi des trois
etats, as a general name for all the forms of primitive religion
which precede and insensibly pass into polytheism. Comte
described the mental attitude of early man towards religion as
" pure fetishism, constantly characterized by the free and direct
exercise of our primitive tendency to conceive all external
bodies whatsoever, natural or artificial, as animated by a life
220 PEOPLE OF INDIA
essentially analogous to our own, with mere differences of
intensity."* His authority, combined with the natural attrac-
tions of a cleanly cut definition, gave wide currency to this
extended sense of the word, and it is only of late years that it
has been confined to the particular class of superstitions to
which the Portuguese explorers originally applied it. In the
light of our present knowledge. Fetishism may be defined as
the worship of tangible inanimate objects believed to possess
in themselves some kind of mysterious power. Thus restricted,
the term marks out a phase of primitive superstition for which
it is convenient to have a distinctive name.
We have seen how Fetishism came to us from the west
„, . coast of Africa. For the origin of Shamanism
Shamanism. . ° .
we must look to Siberia. Shaman is the
title of the sorcerer-priest of the Tunguz tribe of Eastern
Siberia, between the Yenisei and Lena rivers. The word has
been supposed to be a variant of the Sanskrit Sramana, Pali
Samana, which appears in the Chinese sha-man or shi-man in
its original sense of a Buddhist ascetic, and may have passed
into the Tunguz language through the Manchu form Saman.
Ethnologists seem to have been introduced to it by the writings
of the German explorer and naturalist, Peter Simon Pallas,
who travelled through the Tunguz country up to the borders
of China in 1772, and wrote a lengthy account of his wander-
ings.! The essence of Shamanism is the recognition of the
* Conite, Philosophic Positive, vol. v., p. 30, quoted by Tylor, Primitive Culture,
vol. ii., 2nd ed., 1873, p. 144.
t Pallas uses the words Schaman and Schamanin (Zauberer and Zauberin) in his curious
book, Samlungen historischer Nachrichten iiber die Mongolischen Volkerschaften, printed at
St. Petersburg in 1776 by the Imperial Academy of Science. Chapter VII. of the second
volume (1801) entitled, "Von den Gaukeleyen des Schamanischen Aberglaubens, Zaubereyen
und Weissagerey unter den Mongolischen Vblkern," deals with the survivals of Shamanism
which Pallas found among the Kalmucks and Mongols "daubed over" as he says (iibertiincht),
" with a coat of the later Buddhistic doctrine." But he does not profess to treat of Shamanism
at length, and remarks that this would be superfluous as full particulars are to be found in
the Siberian Travels of the elder Gmelin and in Georg's Bescription of the Nations of the
Russian Empire. The "Elder Gmelin" was Johann Georg, born 1709, who travelled in
Siberia from 1743 to 1773 and published his Reisen durch Siberien in four octavo volumes at
Gottingen in 1751-52. He became Professor of Botany at Tubingen in 1749, six years
before his death. He was also the author of the Flora Siberia, two volumes of which were
published during his life, while the remaining two were edited by his nephew, Samuel
Gotlob Gmelin, who travelled with Pallas in Siberia. After leaving Pallas, Samuel went
to the Crimea, where he was captured by the Khan, and died in prison at the age of thirty-
one. I mention these particulars, for which I am indebted to my friend Lt.-Col. Prain,
C.I.E., F.R.S., because it seems possible that the word " Shaman " may have been introduced
not by Pallas, but by Johann Gebrg Gmelin. The Gmelins were a notable family, and no
less than seven of them wrote books on botany at dates ranging from 1699 to 1866. None
CASTE AND RELIGION 221
Shaman, medicine man, wizard, or magician, as the authorized
agent by whom unseen powers can be moved to cure disease,
to reveal the future, to influence the weather, to avenge a man
on his enemy, and generally to intervene for good or evil
in the affairs of the visible world. The conception of the
character of the powers invoked varies with the culture of the
people themselves. They may be gods or demons, spirits or
ancestral ghosts, or their nature may be wholly obscure and
shadowy. In order to place himself en rapport with them, the
Shaman lives a life apart, practises or pretends to practise
various austerities, wears mysterious and symbolical garments,
and performs noisy incantations in which a sacred drum or
enchanted rattle takes a leading part. On occasion he should
be able to foam at the mouth and go into a trance or fit, during
which his soul is supposed to quit his body and wander away
into space. By several observers these seizures have been
ascribed to epilepsy, and authorities quoted by Peschel go so
far as to say that the successful Shaman selects the pupils
whom he trains to succeed him from youths with an epileptic
tendency. It seems possible, however, that the phenomena
supposed to be epileptic may really be hypnotic. In this and
other respects there is a general resemblance between the
Shaman and the spiritualist medium of the present day. Both
deal in much the same wares, and spiritualism is little
more than modernized Shamanism. Nevertheless, though
the principle of Shamanism is proved, by these and other
instances, to be widely diffused and highly persistent, it does
not cover the entire field of primitive superstition, and it is mis-
leading to use the name of a part for the purpose of defining the
whole. Still less can we follow Lubbock in treating Shamanism
as a necessary stage in the progress of rehgious development,
or Peschel in extending the term to the priesthoods of organized
religions like Buddhism, Brahmanism, and Islam. Traces of
Shamanism may have survived in all of them, as in the witch-
craft occasionally met with in modern Europe ; but to call their
of their books are to be had in Calcutta, so I am unable to verify the conjecture thrown
out above.
The copy of Pallas's Sanilungen in the library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal appears
from a note on the title page, to have been presented by the Czar of Russia in 1846. The
second volume was published twenty-five years after the first, and bears the imprimatur of
the St. Petersburg Censor which is wanting in the earlier volume. [Banzaroff derives
Shaman from a Manchu root, and asserts that it is met with in Chinese writings of the
seventh century, when North Mongolia was dominated by the Yuan-yuan, a people of
Tungus-Manchu origin (J. Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. iii.,
1910, p. 15.)]
222 PEOPLE OF INDIA
hierarchy Shamanistic is to ignore historical development and
to confuse the Yogi with the Brahman, and the Fakir with the
Mulla.
The word Animism was first used to denote the meta-
physical system of Georg Ernst Stahl, the originator of the
chemical hypothesis of Phlogiston, who revived in scientific
form the ancient doctrine of the identity of the vital principle
and the soul. In his Theoria medica vera published at Halle in
1707, Stahl endeavoured, in opposition to Hoffman's theory of
purely mechanical causation, to trace all organic functions to
the action of an inherent immaterial substance or aniiua. In
. . . his great work on Primitive Culture Sir
A Til Tn 1 RTn ^
E. B. Tylor, transferred the term from meta-
physics, where it had had its day, to ethnology, where it has
taken root and flourished, and made the idea which it con-
veys the basis of his exposition of the principles underlying
primitive religion. " It is habitually found," he writes, " that
the theory of Animism divides into two great dogmas forming
parts of one consistent doctrine ; first, concerning souls of indi-
vidual creatures, capable of continued existence after the death
or destruction of the body; second, concerning other spirits,
upward to the rank of powerful deities. Spiritual beings are
held to affect or control the events of the material world, and
man's life here and hereafter; and it being considered that they
hold intercourse with men, and receive pleasure or displeasure
from human actions, the belief in their existence leads naturally,
and it might also be said inevitably, sooner or later to active
reverence and propitiation. Thus Animism, in its full develop-
ment, includes the belief in souls and in a future state, in
controlling deities and subordinate spirits, these doctrines
practically resulting in some kind of active worship." *
Here for the first time we are presented with a name de-
rived from careful comparison and analysis
"^^avaUaWe!"^ of a large body of facts, and purporting
to express the central and dominant idea
underlying primitive religion. The advance on the earlier
terminology is immense. We have passed from the superficial
to the essential, from the casual impressions of traders and
travellers to the mature conclusions of a skilled observer.
Although the term has not escaped criticism, it covers, if not
the whole field, at any rate a large and conspicuous part of it ;
it has gained universal currency and is unlikely to be displaced.
* Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 426,
CASTE AND RELIGION 323
It is indeed almost inconceivable that any name should be
devised which would embody a precise conception of the
confused bundle of notions wrapped up in savage religion ;
and most reasonable people will feel that haggling over termi-
nology is a thankless and futile form of intellectual exercise.
While I entirely accept Animism, as the best name that we
are likely to get, some objections to which
it is liable may perhaps be mentioned. In ^Animismf^"^
the first place, it connotes, or seems to con-
note, the idea that gods are merely the ghosts or shadows of
men, projected in superhuman proportions, like the spectre of
the Brocken, on the misty background of the unknown, but
still in their inception nothing but common ghosts. Defi-
nitions, of course, cannot be judged merely by etymology, but
a name which appears to beg a controverted question is pro
tanto not a good name. Moreover, this particular name, failing
the explanations necessary to bring out its limitations, seems
to have done some real dis-service to science, and that in
a branch of investigation where a name counts for a great deal.
One may almost say of Animism that it has given rise to a new
bias, the anthropological bias. The theological or missionary
bias we know, and are prepared to discount. It leads those
who are possessed by it to regard all alien gods, in one case as
devils, and in another as degenerate survivals of an original
revelation or intuition. But the tutored anthropologist is
worse than the untutored missionary. He knows the game
only too well ; he sees what his theory of origins allows him to
see, and he unconsciously shapes the evidence in the collecting
so as to fit the theory with which Mr. Tylor has set him up.
Secondly, it admits of being confused with the idea, common to
savages and children, that all things are animated, a notion not
easy to reconcile with the ghost theory of religion, which is
based on the assumption that primitive man was profoundly
impressed by the difference between the dead and the living
and evolved therefrom the conception of spirit. Thirdly, the
name leaves out of account, or at any rate inadequately
expresses, what may be called the impersonal element in early
religion, an element which seems to me to have been rather
overlooked. In touching on this point I am reluctant to add
yet another conjecture to a literature already so prolific in
more or less ingenious guesses. But I have had the good
fortune, while settling a series of burning disputes about land,
to have been brought into very intimate relations with some
224 PEOPLE OF INDIA
of the strongest and most typical Animistic races in India, and
thus to have enjoyed some special opportunities of studying
Animism in those forest solitudes which are its natural home.
More especially in Chutia Nagpur, where this religion still
survives in its pristine vigour, my endeavours to find out what
the jungle people really do belieye have led me to the negative
conclusion that in most cases the indefinite something which
they fear and attempt to propitiate is not a person at all in any
sense of the word. If one must state the case in positive
terms, I should say that the idea which lies at the root of their
religion is that oi power, or rather of many powers. What the
Animist worships, and seeks in strange ways to influence and
conciliate, is the shifting and shadowy company of unknown
powers or tendencies making for evil rather than for good,
which reside in the primeval forest, in the crumbling hills, in
the rushing river, in the spreading tree, which gives its spring
to the tiger, its venom to the snake, which generates jungle
fever, and walks abroad in the terrible guise of cholera,
small-pox, or murrain. Closer than this he does not seek to
define the object to which he offers his victim, or whose symbol
he daubs with vermilion at the appointed season. Some sort
of power is there, and that is enough for him. Whether it is
associated with a spirit or an ancestral ghost, whether it pro-
ceeds from the mysterious thing itself, whether it is one power
or many, he does not stop to enquire. I remember a huge Sal
tree {Shorea robusta) in a village not far from my head- quarters,
which was the abode of a nameless something of which the
people were mightily afraid. My business took me frequently
to the village, and I made many endeavours to ascertain what
the something was. There was no reluctance to talk about it,
but I could never get it defined as a god, a demon, or a ghost.
Eventually an Anglicised Hindu pleader from another district
took a speculative lease of the village, and proceeded to enhance
the rents and exploit it generally. One of the first things he
did was to assert himself by cutting down the haunted tree.
Strange as it may seem, no one was in the least alarmed at this
sacrilegious act. The Hindu, they said, was a foreigner, so
nothing could happen to him, while the villagers were blame-
less, for they had not touched the tree. What was supposed
to have become of its mysterious occupant I never could ascer-
tain. The instance is typical of the Animistic point of view,
and has numberless parallels. All over Chutia Nagpur there
are many jungle-clad hills, the favourite haunts of bears, which
CASTE AND RELIGION 225
beaters of the Animistic races steadfastly refuse to approach
until the mysterious power which pervades them has been
conciliated by the sacrifice of a fowl. Everywhere we find
sacred groves, the abode of equally indeterminate beings, who
are represented by no symbols and of whose form and functions
no one can give an intelligible account. They have not yet
been clothed with individual attributes ; they linger on as
survivals of the impersonal stage of early religion.
If we assume for the moment the possibility that some
such conception, essentially impersonal in
its character and less definite than the idea ^mfntai for/es^.'
of a spirit, may have formed the germ of
primitive religion, one can see how easily it may have escaped
observation. The languages of wild people are usually ill-
equipped with abstract terms, and even if they had a name for
so vague and inchoate a notion, it would certainly have to be
translated into the religious vocabulary of their anthropo-
morphic neighbours. A Santal could only explain Marang
Buru, " the great mountain," by saying that it was a sort of Deo
or god. A Mech or Dhimal could give no other account of the
reverence with which he regards the Tista river, a frame of
mind amply justified by the destructive vagaries of its snow-fed
current. On the same principle a writer* of the 17th century
says of the West African natives that "when they talk to
whites, they call their idolatry Fitisiken, I believe because the
Portuguese called sorcery fitiso." In Melanesia, according to
Dr. Codrington, " plenty devil " is the standard formula for
describing a sacred place, and the Fiji word for devil has
become the common appellation of the native ghosts or spirits.
So it is with the Animistic races of India. If they are
questioned about their religion, they can only reply in terms
of another religion, in Sanskrit derivatives which belong to
a wholly different order of ideas. And when we find in
Melanesia the very people who put off the inquisitive foreigner
with the comprehensive word devil, still retaining the belief
in incorporeal beings with neither name nor shape, round
whom no myths have gathered, who are not and never have
been human, who control rain and sunshine and are kindly
disposed towards men, one is tempted to conjecture that the
same sort of belief would be found in India by any one who could
adequately probe the inner consciousness of the Animistic races.
* W. J. Miiller, Die Africanische Landschaft Felu, Nuremberg, 1675, quoted by Max
Muller, Anthropological Religion, p. 120.
R, PI IS
326 PEOPLE OF INDIA
The hypothesis that the earliest beginnings of savage
^ . . „ religion are to be sought in the recognition
Origm of unwor- => ° >■ u ■ ^u c *■
shipped supreme 01 elemental forces to which, in the tirst
^®i^ss. instance, no personal qualities are ascribed,
may perhaps afford an explanation of a problem which has
exercised several enquirers of late — the origin of the faineant
unworshipped Supreme Beings who figure in savage mythology
almost all over the world. The existence of such personages
does not fit in with some current theories of the origin of re-
ligion, nor are the facts readily explained away. Sir E. B. Tylor
believes these beings to have been borrowed from missionary
teaching; Mr. Andrew Lang holds that they "came, in some
way only to be guessed at," first in order of evolution, and
mentions, as "not the most unsatisfactory" solution of the
problem, the hypothesis of St. Paul (Rom. i. 19). " Because
that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God
hath showed it unto them." We find distinct traces of them in
Indian Animism, but in India no one has been at the trouble of
speculating about their origin. Now, if man began merely by
believing in undefined powers which he attempted to control by
means of magic, is it not conceivable that the powers whose
activity was uniformly beneficial should, as time went on,
receive less attention than those which on occasion were cap-
able of doing mischief? When natural conservatism has to
some extent spent its force, magicians and their clients must by
degrees perceive, or must by accident discover, that the rising
of the sun is in no way dependent upon the imitative magical rites
designed to secure its recurrence, and these functions accord-
ingly fall into disuse. When the monsoon current is fairly
regular, the powers of the air tend to share the same fate, though
the women of the tribe still preserve and occasionally practise
the magic art of rain-making, stripping themselves naked at
night and dragging a plough through the parched fields, as the
Kochh women do this day in Rangpur. But he would be a bold
man who would venture to neglect the destructive powers of
nature, the diseases which strike without warning, and' the
various chances of sudden and accidental death. When the
era of anthropomorphism sets in, and personal gods come into
fashion, the active and passive powers of the earlier system are
clothed in appropriate attributes. The former become depart-
mental spirits or gods, with shrines and temples of their own
and incessant offerings from apprehensive votaries. The latter
receive sparing and infrequent worship, but are recognized, en
CASTE AND RELIGION 227
revanche, as beings of a higher type, fathers and well-wishers of
mankind, patrons of primitive ethics, maker of things who have
done their work and earned their repose. The Santal Marang
Buru represents the one ; the Bongas or godlings of disease are
examples of the other. With the transformation of impersonal
powers into personal gods, magic too changes its character.
The materialistic processes which consist of imitating the out-
ward and visible effects of natural forces give place to spells,
incantations, and penances which are supposed to compel the
ggds to obey the commands of the magician. In course of time
magic itself is ousted by religion, and banished to those holes
and corners of popular superstition where it still survives in
varying degrees of strength.*
The theory carries us still further. It endeavours to
account, by the operation of known pro-
cesses of thought, not merely for what Mr. RSiSonf^ °
Lang calls "the high gods of low races,"
but also for the entire congeries of notions from which the
beginnings of religion have gradually emerged. It supposes
that early man's first contact with his surroundings gave him
the idea of a number of influences, powers, tendencies, forces,
outside and other than himself, which affected him in various
ways. His dealings with these were at first determined by the
rudimentary principle of association, common to men and other
animals, that like causes like. In that early stage of his mental
development the primitive philosopher did not impute personal
attributes of any kind to the something not himself which made
for his comfort or the reverse ; nor did he suppose that the
effects which the various somethings produced were brought
about by the action of any individual even remotely resembling
himself. Had he entertained any such idea, it is difficult to see
how magic could ever have come into existence, still less how
it could have preceded the development of what we call religion.
For the essence of magic is compulsion. Flectere si nequeo
Superos, Acheronta movebo. If certain operations are accurately
gone though, certain results are bound to follow, as a mere
sequence of effect and cause. The earliest type of such
processes is what is called imitative magic, because it imitates
the phenomena which it seeks to produce. Or, to put the case
in another way, it attempts to set a cause in motion by
mimicking its consequences. Fires are lighted to make the sun
[* For a discussion of this type of belief, now designated Pre-Animism or Teratism, see
R. R, Marett, The Threshold of Religion, 1914, chap, i.]
228 PEOPLE, OF INDIA
shine in season ; water is sprinkled in a shower of drops with
the object of inducing rain. In either case the operation is of a
quasi-scientific character, and the operator endeavours to con-
trol a natural force by imitating its manifestations on a small
scale. His mental attitude is sp far removed from our own
that it would be futile to attempt to analyse it, but it seems to
involve the same kind of instinctive or semi-conscious
association of ideas, of which instances may be observed among
intelligent animals such as monkeys and dogs.
On the other hand, if " in the beginning at least," as Mr.
„^ T. , ^, Grant Allen * affirms, " every god was
The ghost theory. ..■ n r i j
nothing but an exceptionally powerful and
friendly ghost — a ghost able to help, and from whose help
great things may reasonably be expected," one can only wonder
how people who desired to enlist his sympathy could have
ventured to approach him in ways so inappropriate and
disrespectful as those associated with magic. The greater the
ghost, the more striking is the incongruity of the ritual. Take
the case of a strong chief like the Zulu Chaka, who exercised
the most absolute power in the most arbitrary fashion, and
loomed so large in the consciousness of the tribe that he
seemed to them none other than a god — how could they
imagine that he who in life was so strong and so relentless
should after death be at the beck and call of any medicine man
who could mumble a formula correctly ? Surely, apotheosis
can never have involved degradation. If there is any force in
this line of argument, it leads us to the following dilemma:
Either we must abandon the view that magic has everywhere
preceded religion^ or we must throw over the theory that every
god commenced life as a magnified ghost. But there is much in
modern research that tends to confirm the former opinion, and
it is hardly necessary to travel beyond the Vedas for proof of
its validity. Vedic ritual is full of imitative or sympathetic
magic, which almost everywhere appears as a palpable survival
from older modes of worship.
The ancestral theory, on the other hand, or at any rate that
extreme form of it with which we are now
'^'°''wo°sMp!'''°" concerned, is less firmly established. No
one of course disputes the existence of
ancestor-worship, or denies that every Pantheon has been
largely recruited from men, not always of the most respectable
[* The Evolution of the Idea of God, 1897, p. 71.]
CASTE AND RELIGION 229
antecedents, who have fascinated the popular imagination by
their doings in life or by the tragic or pathetic fashion of their
death. India can show a motley crowd of such divinities.
Priests and princesses, pious ascetics and successful dacoits,
Indian soldiers of fortune and British men of action, bride-
grooms who met their death on their wedding day, and virgins
who died unwed, jostle each other in a fantastic Walpurgis
dance where new performers are constantly joining in and old
ones seldom go out. How niodern some of these personages
are may be seen from a few illustrations. In 1884 Keshab
Chandra Sen, the leader of one of the numerous divisions of the
Brahmo Samaj, narrowly escaped something closely resembling
deification at the hands of a section of his disciples. A revela-
tion was said to have been received enjoining that the chair
used by him during his life should be set apart and kept sacred,
and the Legal Member of the Viceroy's Council was invited to
arbitrate in the matter. Sir Courtenay Ilbert discreetly refused
" to deal with testimony of a kind inadmissible in a Court of
Justice;" the parties to the dispute arrived at a compromise
among themselves; and the apotheosis of the famous preacher
remained incomplete. In Bombay a personage of a very
different type has been promoted to divine honours. Sivaji, the
founder of the Maratha Confederacy, has a temple and image in
one of the bastions of the fort at Malvan in the Ratnagiri
district and is worshipped by the Gauda caste of fishermen.
This seems to be a local cult, rather imperfectly developed, as
there are no priests and no regular ritual. But within the last
generation smaller men have attained even wider recognition.
By the aid of railways and printing, the fame of a modern deity
may travel a long way. Portraits of Yashvantrao, a subordinate
revenue officer in Khandesh, who ruined himself by promiscuous
almsgiving, and sacrificed his official position to his reluctance to
refuse the most impossible requests, are worshipped at the
present day in thousands of devout households. Far down in
the south of India, I have come across cheap lithographs of a
nameless Bombay ascetic, the Swami of Akalkot in Sholapur,
who died about twenty years ago. In life the Swami seems to
have been an irritable saint, for he is said to have pelted with
stones any ill-advised person who asked questions about his
name and antecedents. As he was reputed to be a Mutiny
refugee, he may have had substantial reasons for guarding his
incognito. He is now revered from the Deccan to Cape
Comorin as Dattatreya, a sort of composite incarnation of
230 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, and has a temple and monastery of
his own.
Facts such as these lead one to surmise that some students
of the modern science of religion have been so impressed by
the undeniable facility with which historical personages are
transformed into gods that they have rather overlooked the
stages by which ancestor-worship has grown up, and have
assumed that its latest form was also its earliest. Now, in
India at any rate, we can trace in the funeral ceremonies, both
of the Hindus and the Animists, survivals of ideas which have
every appearance of going back to a far older phase of the
religious instinct than that which leads to the deification of
famous men. In the Vedic ritual, for example, as given by
Gobhila, a prominent feature is the banquet offered to the
souls of the dead — a rite which is met with among primitive
people all over the world. Here is no suggestion that the
souls go to heaven ; they abide on or under the earth near
the dwellings of men, and wait for the living to supply them
with food and clothes. These pia munera are offered at monthly
intervals, but the motive which inspires them is plainly dis-
closed by the symbolical acts which accompany the offering.
At the close of the ceremony the dead ancestors are bidden to
depart to their ancient habitations deep under the earth; the
footprints of the mourners are swept away with a branch lest
the souls should track the living to their homes ; every man
shakes out the corners of his garments for fear an importunate
spirit lurk somewhere in their folds ; a stone or a clod of earth
is set up to bar the soul's return ; the funeral party step over
running water which spirits cannot pass, and are careful not to
look behind them on their way home. For the same reason
the Mangars of Nepal obstruct the road leading from the grave
with a barricade of thorns, through which the soul, conceived
of as a miniature man, very tender and fragile, is unable to
force its way. The Kol, the Oraon, and the Bhumij are even
now in the stage which appears in Vedic ritual as a mere
survival. They do not worship their ancestors, in any intel-
ligible sense of the word. That is to say, they do not pray to
them as the Vedic people did, for male offspring, length of
days, abundant flocks and herds, and victory over their enemies.
It is true that they appease them with food, but this they do,
partly from a kindly regard for their welfare, but mainly to
deter them from coming back and making themselves un-
pleasant. None of their gods can be shown to be deified
CASTE AND RELIGION 231
ancestors, nor do any of them bear personal names. There is
another point which deserves notice. Among all these tribes
memorial stones are set up to mark the spots where the ashes
of the headmen of the village have been buried. Some of these
stones are rounded off at the top into the rudimentary sem-
blance of a head. Yet the stones are not worshipped, nor are
similar stones erected in honour of the powers .which are
worshipped. If these powers were once upon a time ancestors
or chiefs of the tribe, how did they come to lose the stones
which were their due ? Thus the usages of both Aryans and
Dravidians point to a conception of the souls of the dead as
neither immortal nor divine, and as depending for their sub-
sistence on human ministrations, which are rendered more in
fear than in affection, and are coloured throughout by the
desire to deter these unwelcome guests from revisiting the
abodes of the living. If these are the oldest ideas on the sub-
ject, as most authorities seem to hold, are we not justified in
regarding with some suspicion the theory that everywhere and
among all people the first step in the evolution of religion was
the transformation of the revenant into a god ? At any rate, the
beliefs and practices of the most vigorous of the Dravidian
races, the compact tribes of Santals, Mundas, Oraons, and Hos,
seerh, so far as they go, to lend some support to the hypothesis
that the beginnings of religion are to be sought in the recog-
nition of impersonal forces which men endeavour to coerce by
magic ; that personal gods, approached by prayer and sacrifice,
are a later development ; and that the deification of chiefs and
ancestors is probably the latest stage of all — a stage reached, it
may be, by means of the ambitious fiction which commenced
by claiming certain gods as ancestors, and ended by trans-
forming some ancestors into gods.
We may now sum up the leading feature of Animism in
India. It conceives of man as passing
, ... 1 , , , , ; Animism in India,
through life surrounded by a ghostly com-
pany of powers, elements, tendencies, mostly impersonal in
their character, shapeless phantasms of which no image can be
made and no definite idea can be formed. Some of these have
departments or spheres of influence of their own : one presides
over cholera, another over small-pox, and another over cattle
disease ; some dwell in rocks, others haunt trees, others again
are associated with rivers, whirlpools, waterfalls, or- with
strange pools hidden in the depths of the hills. All of them
require to be diligently propitiated by reason of the ills which
232 PEOPLE OF INDIA
proceed from them, and usually the land of the village provides
the ways and means for this propitiation. In the Ranchi
district of Chutia Nagpur there is a tenure called Bhut-Kheta,
which may be interpreted Devil's Acre, under which certain
plots of land are set apart for the primitive priest whose duty
it is to see that offerings are made in due season, and that the
villagers are protected from the malign influences of the
shadowy powers who haunt the dark places of their immediate
environment. The essence of all these practices is magic. If
certain things are done decently and in order, the powers of
evil are rendered innocuous in a mechanical but infallible
fashion. But the rites must be correctly performed, the magic
formulae must be accurately pronounced, or else the desired
eff'ect will not be produced. It is, I think, unfortunate, that at
the time when Sir E. B. Tylor's great book on Primitive Culture
was written, the essential distinction between magic and religion
had not been clearly defined. Had this been so, had we then
known all that Sir J. G. Frazer has since told us, I venture to
doubt whether the term Animism would ever have come into
existence. Considerations of ritual and usage, rather than of
mythologies, traditions, and cosmogonies, would have led Sir
E. B. Tylor to the conclusion that the governing factor in these
primitive religions is to be sought not in belief, not in any com-
pact theory as to dreams, spirits, or souls, but in the magical
practices which enter into the daily life of semi-civilized men.
Premising then that when we speak of Animism what we
Eelation between really mean is that exceedingly crude form
Animism and popu- of religion in which magic is the predomi-
lar Hinduism. ^^^^ element, we may go on to consider
what is the relation between Animism and popular Hinduism.
Several definitions of Hinduism are contained in the literature
of the subject. In his report on the Punjab Census of 1881
(para. 214), Sir Denzil Ibbetson described it as —
"A hereditary sacerdotalism with Brahmans for its Levites, the vitality of which is
preserved by the social institution of caste, and which may include all shades and diversities
of religion native to India, as distinct from the foreign importations of Christianity and
Islam, and from the later outgrowths of Buddhism, more doubtfully of Sikhism, and still
more doubtfully of Jainism."
A few years later Babu Guru Prasad Sen said that Hinduism
was " what the Hindus, or a major portion of them, in a Hindu
community do." * Sir Athelstane Baines, who was Census
Commissioner in 1891, proceeded by the method of exclusion,
[* Introduction to the Study of Hindnism,'^\%^'^, p. 9.]
CASTE AND RELIGION 233
and defined Hinduism as "the large residuum that is not Silch,
or Jain, or Buddhist, or professedly Animistic, or included in
one of the foreign religions such as Islam, Mazdaism, Chris-
tianity, or Hebraism."* More recently, Sir Alfred Lyall, t the
first living authority on the subject, roughly described it as
"the religion of all the people who accept the Brahmanic
Scriptures." He went on to speak of it as "a tangled jungle of
disorderly superstitions." Finally, he called it " the collection
of rites, worships, beliefs, traditions, and mythologies that are
sanctioned by the sacred books and ordinances of the Brahmans
and are propagated by Brahmanic teaching." The general
accuracy of this newest definition is beyond dispute, but I
venture to doubt whether it conveys to any one without Indian
experience even an approximate idea of the elements out of
which popular Hinduism has been evolved, and of the con-
flicting notions which it has absorbed. From this point of
view Hinduism may fairly be described as Animism more or less
transformed by philosophy, or, to condense the epigram still
further, as magic tempered by metaphysics. The fact is that
within the enormous range of beliefs and practices which are
included in the term Hinduism, there are comprised entirely
different sets of ideas, or, one may say, widely different con-
ceptions of the world and of life. At one end, a,t the lower end
of the series is Animism, an essentially materialistic theory of
things which seeks by means of magic to ward off or to fore-
stall physical disasters, which looks no further than the world
of sense, and seeks to make that as tolerable as the conditions
will permit. At the other end is Pantheism combined with
a system of transcendental metaphysics.
I will give two simple illustrations of the lower set of ideas.
In a small sub-divisional court, where I
J . J • 1 , , r Illustration of
used once to dispense what passed for Animistic ideas.
justice in the surrounding jungles, there
was tied to the railings which fenced off" the presiding officer
from the multitude a fragment of a tiger's skin. When
members of certain tribes, of whom the Santals were a type,
came into court to give evidence, they were required to take a
peculiar but most impressive oath the use of which was, I
believe, entirely illegal. Holding the tiger's skin in one hand,
the witness began by invoking the power of the sun and moon,
and, after asseverating his intention to speak the truth, he
* Census Report, India, 1891, p. 158.]
[t Asiatic Studies, 1899, vol. ii., p. 288.]
234 PEOPLE OF INDIA
.ended up by devoting himself to be devoured by the power of
the tiger in case he should tell a lie. Some of the tribes who
used to swear this weird oath have now been caught up in the
wide-spread net of Hinduism, and have already parted with
their tribal identity. Others again, like the Santals, are made
of sterner stuff, and still preserve an independent existence
as compact and vigorous tribes. But the oath deserves
remembrance as a vivid presentment of the order of ideas
that prevails on the very outskirts of Hinduism. The reality
of these ideas and the effectiveness of the sanction which they
invoke, were sufiGciently attested by the manifest reluctance of
a mendacious witness to touch the magic skin, and by the zeal
with which the court usher insisted upon his taking a firm
grasp of it. The people who swore thus in fear and trembling,
and having sworn usually told the truth according to their
lights., were not in the least afraid of the mere physical tiger.
On the contrary, they slew him without the smallest com-
punction, and carried off his corpse in triumph to claim the
Government reward. Their most effective weapon was a very
powerful bamboo bow, trained on the tiger's customary path,
and carrying a poisoned arrow which was discharged by a
string crossing- the track. This string was called the Kdl dori
or "thread of death." At a short distance on either side of it
were two other strings, known as dharm dori or " threads of
mercy." If these were touched, they twitched the arrow off its
rest, and rendered the bow innocuous. They were set at such
a height that a tiger would walk under them, while a man or a
cow would be bound to run against them. If one asked how
goats escaped, one was told that they were protected by
certain magical spells. The point which this digression seeks
to establish is that the oath sworn in court derived its sanction
not from any reverence for the tiger in the flesh, nor from the
fear of being eaten by him, but from the vague dread of a
mysterious tiger-power or tiger-demon, the essence and arche-
type of all tigers, whose vengeance no man who swore falsely
could hope to escape.
If we move a few grades further up in the social scale,
we find the worship of various kinds of Fetishes which the
Portuguese seamen observed in West Africa in the middle of
the isth century, still holding its own almost from' the top
to the bottom of Hindu society. Here, again, it is ritual
rather than the theories of the books that gives the clue to
the actual beliefs of the people. How tenacious these beliefs
CASTE AND RELIGION 235
are, and in what curiously modern forms they frequently
express themselves, may be gathered from the following
instance, which, I believe, is now recorded for the first time.
Every year when the Government of India moves from Simla
to Calcutta, there go with it, as orderlies or chaprdsis, a number
of cultivators from the hills round about Simla, who are
employed to carry despatch boxes, and to attend upon the
various grades of officials in that great bureaucracy. At the
time of the spring equinox there is a festival called Sri
Panchami, when it is incumbent on every
religious-minded person to worship the '^^^^1^^!^^°''
implements or insignia of the vocation by
which he lives. The soldier worships his sword ; the cultivator
his plough; the money-lender his ledger; the Thags had a
picturesque ritual for adoring the pickaxe with which they dug
the graves of their victims; and, to take the most modern
instance, the operatives in the jute mills near Calcutta bow
down to the Glasgow-made engines which drive their looms.
Five years ago I asked one of my orderlies what worship he
had done on this particular occasion, and he was good enough
to give me, knowing that I was interested in the subject, a
minute description of the ritual observed. The ceremony took
place on the flat roof of the huge pile of buildings which is
occupied by the secretariats of the Government of India.
The worshippers, some thirty in number, engaged as their
priest a Punjabi Brahman, who was employed in the same
capacity as themselves. They took one of the large packing
cases which are used to convey office records from Simla to
Calcutta, and covered its rough woodwork with plantain
leaves and branches of the sacred plpal tree. On this founda-
tion they set up an office despatch box which served as a
sort of altar; in the centre of the altar was placed a common
English glass ink-pot with a screw top, and round this were
arranged the various sorts of stationery in common use, pen-
holders and pen-nibs, red, blue, and black pencils, pen-knives,
ink erasers, foolscap and letter-paper, envelopes, postage
stamps, blotting paper, sealing wax, in short, all the clerkly
paraphernalia by means of which the Government of India
justifies its existence. The whole was draped with abundant
festoons of red tape. To the fetish thus installed each of the
worshippers presented with reverential obeisance grains of
rice, turmeric, spices, pepper and other fruits of the earth,
together with the more substantial off"ering of nine copper
236 PEOPLE OF INDIA
pice or farthings — " nttmero deus impare gaudet" — the perquisite
of the officiating priest. The Brahman then recited various
cabalistic formulae, supposed to be texts from the Vedas, of
which neither he nor the worshippers understood a single
word. When the ceremony was over, the worshippers attacked
a vast mass of sweetmeats which had been purchased by a
subscription of a rupee a head. The Bf ahman ate as much as
he could, and they finished the rest. 1 asked my informant, who
is a small landowner in one of the hill states near Simla, what
he meant by worshipping an imported ink-pot when he ought
to have worshipped a country-made plough. He admitted the
anomaly, but justified it by observing that after all he drew
pay from the department ; that the ink-pot was the emblem of
the Government ; and that he had left his plough in the hills.
These are the lower aspects of Hinduism, survivals of magical
observances which show no signs of falling into disuse.*
The Animistic usages of which we find such abundant
traces in Hinduism appear, indeed, to have
Sources of Animistic j ■ ^ ^i. ^• • r ^ j-cc
usages. passed into the religion from two different
sources. Some are derived from the Vedic
Aryans themselves, others from the Dravidian races who have
been absorbed into Hinduism. As to the first, Bergaigne has
shown in his treatise on Vedic religion that the Vedic sacrifice,
which is still performed by the more orthodox Hindus in
various parts of India, is nothing more nor less than an imita-
tion of certain celestial phenomena.! It is, in other words,
merely sympathetic magic directed, in the first instance, to
securing the material benefits of sunshine and rain in their
appointed seasons. The Vedas themselves, therefore, are one
source of the manifold Animistic practices which may now be
traced all through popular Hinduism. They have contributed
not only the imitative type of sacrifice, but also the belief, no
less magical in its character, that by the force of penance and
ascetic abnegation man may shake the distant seat of the gods
* The practice of worshipping office furniture seems to be older than I had supposed. I
am indebted to the Honourable Mr. Miller, C.S.I., Member of the Viceroy's Council, for the
following quotation : "All the working classes offer sacrifices and worship on stated days to
the implements through which their subsistence is obtained ; Sahukars and merchants to
their ledgers and hoards of treasure ; and revenue servants to the Diiftar, or public records,
of their departments." Report on the Territories of the Rajah of Nagpore. By Richard
Jenkins, Esq., Resident at the Court of the Rajah of Nagpore, 1827, p. 53. [It is described
by H. H. Wilson, Essays and Lectures chiefly on the Religion of the Hindus, 1862, vol. ii.,
p. 187 ; W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India, 2nd ed., 1896,
vol. ii., p. 185 et seg.']
t La Religion VMique, i, 125. See also Oldenberg, Die Religion Des Veda,
CASTE AND RELIGION 237
and compel them to submit themselves to his will. It would
be fruitless to attempt to distinguish the two streams of
magical usage — the Vedic and the Animistic. They are of
mixed parentage like the people who observe them, partly
Indo-Aryan and partly Dravidian.
At the other end of the scale, in the higher regions of
Hinduism, the dominant idea is " what is _
I, I T\ f • -1 • Pantneism.
called rantheism, that is, the doctrine that
all the countless deities, and all the great forces and operations
of nature, such as the wind, the rivers, the earthquakes, the
pestilences, are merely direct manifestations of the all-pervading
divine energy which shows itself in numberless forms and
manners." * Of this doctrine the most eloquent and effective
description is that given in the Sixth book of the ^neid (724-729)
— a passage so transfused with Indian thought that it is hardly
possible to doubt" that its leading ideas are of Indian descent,
though Virgil may have derived them from Ennius, and he
again from the Pythagoreans of Magna Graecia.
Principio cxium ac terras camposque liquentis
Lucentemque globum Lunae Titaniaque astra
Spiritus intas alit, totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem et magno se corpora miscet.
Inde hominum pecudumque genus vitseque volantum
Et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub oequore pontus.
Here we seem at first sight to have travelled very far from
the chaos of impersonal terrors that forms the stuff of which
primitive religion is made. Yet it is easier to trace Pantheism
to the gradual consolidation of the multifarious forces of
Animism into one philosophic abstraction than to divine how
a host of personal gods could have been stripped of their
individual attributes and merged in a sexless and characterless
world-soul. In a word. Animism seems to lead naturally to
Pantheism ; while the logical outcome of Polytheism is Mono-
theism. The former process has completed itself in India;
the latter may be yet to come.
Between these extremes of practical magic at the one end
and transcendental metaphysics at the other, there is room for
every form of belief and practice that it is possible for the
human imagination to conceive. Worship of elements, of
natural features and forces, of deified men, ascetics, animals,
powers of life, organs of sex, weapons, primitive implements,
modern machinery ; sects which enjoin the sternest forms of
* Sir Alfred Lyall, Hinduism ; Religious Systems of the World, p. 113.
238 PEOPLE OF INDIA
asceticism ; sects which revel in promiscuous debauchery ;
sects which devote themselves to hypnotic meditation; sects
which practise the most revolting form of cannibalism— all of
these are included in Hinduism and each finds some order of
intellect or sentiment to which it appeals. And .through all
this bewildering variety of creeds there is traceable the
influence of a pervading pessimism, of the conviction that
life, and more especially the prospect of a series of lives, is
the heaviest of all burdens that can be laid upon man. The
one ideal is to obtain release from the ever-turning wheel of
conscious existence, and to sink individuality in the impersonal
spirit of the world.
Pantheism in India is everywhere intimately associated with
the doctrine of metempsychosis. The origin
ransm^raj.on an ^^ ^.j^j^ belief, deeply engrained as it is in all
ranks of Indian society, is wholly uncertain.
Professor Macdonell * tells us that "the Rig Veda contains no
traces of it beyond the couple of passages in the last book
which speak of the soul of a dead man as going to the waters
or spirits," and he surmises that the Aryan settlers may have
received the first impulse in this direction from the aboriginal
inhabitants of India. To any Indian official who has served in
a district where the belief in witchcraft is prevalent, the con-
jecture appears a peculiarly happy one, for in the course of
exercising his ordinary magisterial functions, he will have
come across abundant evidence of the widespread conviction
among savage people,^ not only that the souls of the dead
may pass into animals and trees, but that living people may
undergo a similar temporary transformation. But if they
borrowed transmigration from the Dravidian inhabitants of
India, the Indo-Aryans lent to it a moral significance of which
no trace is to be found among the Animists. They supple-
mented the idea of transmigration by the theory of self-acting
retribution which is known as Karma. According to this
doctrine every action, good or evil, that a man does in the
course of his life, is forthwith automatically recorded for or
against him, as the case may be. There is no repentance, no
forgiveness of sins, no absolution. That which is done carries
with it its inevitable consequences through the long succession
of lives which awaits the individual soul before it can attain
the Pantheistic form of salvation, and become absorbed in the
world-essence from which it originally emanated. As the
[* History of Sanskrit Literature, 1900, p. 115.]
CASTE AND RELIGION 239
wheel of existence goes on turning and man, who is bound
to it, passes from one life to another, at the close of each a
balance is struck which determines his condition in the life
that follows. If the balance is against him, he descends to a
lower grade; if it is in his favour, he moves up higher and
ultimately, when the system of self-working retribution has
run its course, he may attain to the final goal of the absolute
extinction of individual existence. As Virgil puts it, in a
phrase which has puzzled most of his commentators, " Quisque
suos patimur manes." In the light of Indian speculation the
meaning of the passage becomes clear. It embodies one of
the leading ideas of Karma, that man through his actions is
master of his fate. But the context discloses no trace of the
characteristic Indian development that destiny is worked out
by means of countless transmigrations. That doctrine seems
at first sight to possess a fine moral flavour, and to harmonize
with the teaching of the Greek dramatist Spa<ravTi Tra^stv. Un-
fortunately for the ethical aspects of Karma, consciousness
does not continue through the whole series of lives; at the
close of each life a curtain of oblivion descends, and the
Brahman whose sins have degraded him to the position of an
over-tasked animal has no remembrance of the high estate
from which he has fallen. The philosophic sinner, therefore,
may eat his oysters in comfort, and console himself with the
thought that, although undoubtedly a reckoning awaits him,
he will have become somebody else by the time the bill is
presented.
Lucian, with his characteristic sense of the practical applica-
tion of theological dogmas, has given a dramatic illustration
of the problem touched upon above in the concluding episode
of one of his most telling dialogues— The Shades at the Ferry
or the Tyrant The scene opens with Charon waiting on the
shore of Acheron for the daily consignment of souls which
Hermes ought to have delivered. He complains to Clotho that
he has not taken a penny all day, though ^ .
... '^ , , . °.^ Lucian on Karma,
the boat might have made three journeys if
the passengers had only been up to time. At last Hermes
appears puffing and blowing, drenched in sweat, and all over
dust. He apologizes for being late, and explains how he took
over from Atropos 1004 souls; but when ^Eacus came to check
them with the invoice he found one short, and made unpleasant
remarks about Hermes' thievish propensities and his talent -for
practical jokes. It was then discovered that one Megapenthes,
240 PEOPLE OF INDIA
the tyrant of a small Greek city, whom his courtiers had
poisoned, had managed to slip away, and Hermes, aided by the
shade of a sturdy philosopher armed with a club, had a sharp
race to catch him just as he was regaining the light of day.
Even when recaptured and dragged down to the boat, Mega-
penthes still struggles for a respite. He offers Clotho ten
thousand talents and two golden mixing bowls, for which he
had murdered his friend Kleokritus, as a bribe to let him live
till he can complete his half-finished palace, or can at least tell
his wife where his great treasure is buried. When this is
refused, he makes what he calls the modest request to live
long enough to conquer the Persians, to exact tribute from the
Lydians, and to build himself a colossal monument. Eventually
he is hustled into the boat, and the cobbler Micyllus is deputed
to sit on his head and keep him quiet.
While crossing the ferry, Charon collects the fares from
every one except the philosopher and the cobbler, neither of
whom has an obolus to his name. On landing, the ghostly
company are brought before Rhadamanthus ; each one is
stripped to show the brands which his past sins have stamped
upon his soul (surely an artistic echo of the doctrine oi Karma),
and the cases proceed. The philosopher Cyniscus, who helped
to catch Megapenthes, appears as his prosecutor; Hermes
calls on the case. The tyrant pleads guilty to a variety of
murders, but denies certain other counts in the indictment.
The dialogue continues :—
" Cy. — I can bring witnesses to these points too, Rhadaman-
thus.
Rhad. — Witnesses, eh?
Cy. — Hermes, kindly summon his Lamp and Bed. They
will appear in evidence, and state what they know of his
conduct.
Her. — Lamp and Bed of Megapenthes, come into court.
Good, they respond to the summons.
Rhad.— 'Now, tell us all you know about Megapenthes.
Bed, you speak first.
Bed.— All that Cyniscus said is true. But really, Mr. Rhada-
manthus, I don't quite like to speak about it; such strange
things used to happen overhead.
Rhad. — Why, your unwillingness to speak is the most
telling evidence of all ! Lamp, now let us have yours.
Lamp. — What went on in the daytime I never saw, not
being there. As for his doings at night, the less said the
CASTE AND RELIGION 241
better. I saw some very queer things, though, monstrous
queer. Many is the time I have stopped taking oil on purpose,
and tried to go out. But then he used to bring me close up.
It was enough to give any lamp a bad character.
Rhad. — Enough of verbal evidence. Now, just divest your-
self of that purple, and we will see what you have in the way
of brands. Goodness gracious, the man's a positive network !
Black and blue with them ! Now, what punishment can we
give him? A bath in Pyriphlegethon? The tender mercies
of Cerberus, perhaps ?
Cy. — No, no. Allow me, — I have a novel idea; something
that will just suit him.
Rhad. — Yes ? I shall be obliged to you for a suggestion.
Cy.—l fancy it is usual for departed spirits to take a draught
of the water of Lethe ?
Rhad. — Just so.
Cy. — Let him be the sole exception.
Rhad. — What is the idea in that ?
Cy. — His earthly pomp and power for ever in his mind ;
his fingers ever busy * on the tale of blissful items ; — 'tis a
heavy sentence !
Rhad. — True. Be this the tyrant's doom. Place him in
fetters at Tantalus' side, — never to forget the things of earth." f
One is tempted to wonder whether Lucian, himself an
Asiatic and a singularly detached observer of the religious ideas
of his day, can have realized the dilemma which his dialogue
suggests, that immortality marred by old memories would be
at best but a sorry boon, while, if purged of its memories, it
would not be immortality at all. Achilles, as we see him in
the Odyssey striding across the mead of asphodel, is haunted
by heroic discontent ; had he drunk the waters of Lethe, he
would have purchased harmony with his surroundings at the
price of his unique personality. Arguing from the experiences
duly recorded by Homer and other classical authorities, it
would seem that in order to find even Elysium a tolerable
abode, the shade of a departed hero ought to be furnished with
a discreetly eclectic memory, which would reject all things
disagreeable, and would recall only the pleasant incidents of
the vista of the past. Failing this alternative, which would
have savoured too frankly of the miraculous to commend itself
* avairiiJ.irtii6ii.evos, " Counting over to himself on his fingers."
t The Works of the Lucian of Samosata. Translated by H. W. and F. G. Fowler.
Clarendon Press, 1906. Vol. i., pp. 244-46.
R, PI 16
242 PEOPLE OF INDIA
to his critical temperament, one can imagine Lucian accepting,
as a comiortahle pts-aller, the Hindu solution or evasion of the
problem by which the fatal gift of eternal reminiscence is
bestowed only on those who have been so wise and virtuous
as to have neither faults nor follies to forget.
Comparisons have frequently been drawn between various
aspects of life under the later Roman Empire and correspond-
ing phases of Indian society under British rule. In the domain
of religion the resemblances and contrasts between the two
sets of phenomena are close and striking. In both our atten-
. . ^-n . tion is at once engaged by the bewildering
Ancient Paganism .,..°°,,. .,
and modern Hindu- multitude of deities embodying in human or
^s™- animal form the visible powers of nature
and the great operative principles that underlie them, birth and
decay, death and regeneration, the cycle of conscious existence
with its infinite variety, the lusts of the flesh, the pride of life,
and the more subtle pride of ascetic renunciation. The motley
crowd comprises gods who once were men, gods borrowed
from strange people whose origin is a mystery, gods of hills
and woods, rivers and streams, guardians of the collective life
of the village, patrons of the family life that centres round the
domestic hearth, kindly ancestors who watch over the destinies
of their descendants, spiteful and malicious ghosts of those
who came to a bad end, or were denied the appointed rites
of sepulture. Of all these types of divinity there were count-
less instances in the Roman Empire of St. Augustine's time
as in the India of to-day. In Rome too, as in India, the higher
minds had risen under the influence of philosophy to the con-
ception of one great central power, the unknown and perhaps
unknowable reality hidden behind the crowd of symbolical
gods and goddesses and the manifold fantastic illusions of the
world of sense. In both countries the refining instincts of
philosophy manifest themselves in the efforts made to explain
away myths which are felt to be wanting in the quality of
edification. To the Roman with a turn for metaphysical specu-
lation "Saturn devouring his children is intelligence returning
upon itself" * For the Hindu of similar tendencies the legend
which recounts how Krishna in his riotous youth stole the
clothes of certain milkmaids while they were bathing, retired
with them up a tree, and made the unfortunate girls sue in
person for the restitution of their garments, illustrates, in the
* Sir S. Dill, Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, 2nd ed., 1899,
p. 104.
CASTE AND RELIGION 243
form of a gross popular tale, the struggles of the human spirit
to attain to the beatific vision of absolute truth, naked and
unadorned, stripped of the material raiment that conceals her
from, mortal eyes. The lingam, a phallic emblem of the vis
genetrix natures believed by some to have been derived from
Dravidian sources, is idealized as "the symbol of the great
Pillar of Fire, which is the most characteristic manifestation
of Mahadeva, the destroying element which consumes all dross
but only purifies the gold." The churning of the sea of milk
with the mountain Mandara and the serpent Vasuki is an
allegory expressing the modern theory of the genesis of the
chemical elements.
Like Hinduism again, classicaL Paganism was surprisingly
flexible and adaptive, and opened its doors with impartial
hospitality to any god whose acquaintance the legionaries
might have made in the course of travel or conquest. Even
Julius Csesar, whom one would credit with some critical
faculty, discovers Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva
among the deities of Gaul ; * and in the vision of Lucius,
described by Apuleius, Isis is made to reveal herself as one
shape with many names worshipped in
Phrygia as Cybele the mother of the gods ; p^glnism^ °
in Athens as Minerva ; in Cyprus as the
Paphian Venus; in Crete as Diana; in Sicily as Proserpina;
and at Eleusis as Ceres. The Indian system of avatars could
hardly evolve a more comprehensive personality. Indeed, in
this matter of borrowing other people's gods Hinduism appears
to me hardly to have gone so far as Paganism. The latter, of
course, had a far greater choice of religions to borrow from as
the boundaries of the Empire were gradually extended, and it
may well be that the narrow formalism of the early Roman
religion predisposed its votaries to embrace the more emotional
beliefs of the East. Sir S. Dill finds an illustration of this in
the popularity of the worship of Mithra, a solar cult adopted
about 70 B.C. from certain Cilician pirates conquered by
Pompey. Mithraism seems to have appealed to the Roman
world by the mystical character of its ritual, by its secret
ceremonies of initiation into a close guild of devotees com-
prising many degrees of holiness, and by its promise of purifi-
cation from sin which culminated in the Taurobolium or baptism
to righteousness in the blood of a slaughtered bull. Nothing
could well be more foreign to the ideas of the elder generation
* De Bell. Gall., vi. 17.
244 PEOPLE OF INDIA
of Romans, who looked upon religious observances as a sort of
legal obligation towards the gods and discouraged as superstitio
any excessive manifestation of devotion. Yet nothing brings
out more clearly the innate adaptiveness of the Roman form of
Paganism, which in this respect closely resembles Hinduism.
It may be that Hinduism has borrowed more extensively than
we know, but the foreign material has been so completely
absorbed that its source can no longer be traced. This process
must have been facilitated by the fact that, unlike some of the
races conquered by Rome, the Dravidians themselves were
anxious to adopt Hinduism, and were merged along with their
tribal deities in a system which makes ample provision for both
social and religious obligations.
On its metaphysical side Roman Paganism seems to have
been hardly so well equipped as Hinduism. Apart from the
Weaker thanHin- breams of a few mystics, it had behind it no
duism in metaphy- definite philosophical system, no compact
Bios and ethics. theory of life and destiny, such as Hinduism
possesses in its doctrines of the world-soul whence all things
arise and have their being, of the illusiveness of sensory
phenomena, and of the cycle of retributive and purifying
transmigration through which the human soul attains ultimate
release by absorption into the primal essence. These ideas
are not the monopoly of the learned : they are shared in great
measure by the man in the street. If you talk to a fairly
intelligent Hindu peasant about the paramdtma, karma, mayd,
mukti, and so forth, you will find, as soon as he has got over
his surprise at your interest in such matters, that the terms are
familiar to him, and that he has formed a rough working theory
of their bearing upon his own future. The religious life of the
bulk of the Roman people was passed on a lower plane.
Involved in a dreary maze of trivial beliefs, petty superstitions,
and minute observances, they were condemned, in the words of
their own poet, " Errare afque viani palanies qucerere vitce,"
without the metaphysical clue to the riddle of existence which
guides the thoughtful Hindu. The road which the latter must
travel may not to our eyes offer an exhilarating prospect, but
at least his path is clear.
In the department of ethics Paganism was equally weak.
It had no dogmatic system to regulate personal conduct, and
it lacked the moral tone and discipline which Christianity
introduced into the world and infused with a spirit of enthu-
siasm and self-sacrifice. The Emperor Julian was keenly
CASTE AND RELIGION 245
sensible of "these defects. A prominent feature of his abortive
revival of Paganism was his attempt to reform the priesthood
itself and to regenerate the ancient worship " by borrowing
a dogmatic theology from Alexandria, an ecstatic devotion
from Persia, a moral ideal from Galilee."* Hinduism cannot
be charged with indifference to moral ideals. Its sacred litera-
ture teems with pious reflexions on the vanity of human life,
the glory of renunciation, the necessity of good works, the
duty of sympathy with all living things, the beauty of for-
bearance, the hatefulness of revenge, and the power of man to
determine his own fate by right conduct. It appeals both to
the intellect and to the emotions, and it derives a certain
measure of support from the social penalties imposed by the
caste system.
In one direction only does Paganism seem to have the
better of Hinduism as a national religion. Its intimate con-
nexion with the corporate life of the community and its capacity
for personifying abstract ideas enabled it to
embody in the form of Roma Dea the con- *'^°"^^timent.^°^*
quering and organizing genius of the Latin
race, the centuries of struggle and victory by which Rome had
won the mastery of the world. Devotion to the goddess of the
Imperial City was one of the strongest obstacles to the triumph
of the Christian Church. Hinduism has never given rise to
that sentiment of patriotism which in the last .days of Rome
still clung to the old gods as the symbols of the earlier regime,
of the city that had lost its liberties, of the republic that had
long been dead, of the Empire that was crumbling to pieces
before the inroads of the barbarians. We may search in vain
among the myriads of Hindu divinities for a Palladian Athena
or a Capitoline Jupiter ; the germs of a national cult are entirely
wanting ; there are no gods of cities or states ; there is no
nucleus of religion round which patriotic enthusiasm might
rally and gather force.
It has been shown above that no sharp line of demarcation
can be drawn between Hinduism and Animism. The one
shades away insensibly into the other, and the most obvious
test— the employment of priests who claim to be Brahmans —
is liable in practice to be defeated by the doubt whether these
Brahmans themselves are anything more than animistic sooth-
sayers writ large. Taking the adherents of the two cults
together, they number close on 216 millions, and comprise
* Dill, loc cit,, p. 100.
246 PEOPLE OF INDIA
nearly three-fourths (73-3 per cent.) of the population of India.
Islam comes next with 62^ millions or 21 per cent. ; Buddhism
counts nearly 9J millions or three per cent. ; Christianity has a
little under 3 millions or i per cent. During the ten years
preceding the Census of 1901, the Muhammadans increased by
9 per cent, and the Christians by nearly 28 per cent.* In the
case of the other two religions, the facts are obscured by
statistics of religion, uncertainty as to the figures The general
position, however, is clear. Hinduism is the
dominant religion of India ; in all its developments it is
intimately associated with caste, and the two sets of factors, the
social and the religious, can hardly be considered apart. The
two rival creeds, Christianity and Islam— for Buddhism may
be left out of account — avowedly reject the principle of
caste, and have been affected by its influence solely through
their contact with Hinduism. So long as Hinduism shows no
decline from its present strength, caste will preserve its ancient
reign, and nothing short of a great accession of strength to
either Islam or Christianity can materially modify the social
and religious future of India. Are there anj' signs of a
tendency in this direction ? Can the figures of the Census of 1901
be regarded as in any sense the forerunners of an Islamic or
Christian revival which will threaten the citadel of Hinduism ?
Or will Hinduism hold its own in the future as it has done
through the long ages of the past ?
The statistics of the Census of 1901 show that during a decade
of famine the Muhammadans in India increased by 9 per cent,
while the population as a whole rose by only 3 per cent. No
doubt these proportions were affected by the fact that the
famines were most severe in those parts of the country where
Muhammadans are relatively least numerous, but in the fertile
and wealthy region of Eastern Bengal, which has never been
touched by real famine, though people on
inerea^e^of Muham- ^^^^^ ^^^^ incomes suffer from high prices,
their rate of increase was 12*3 per cent, or
nearly double that of the Hindus. The figures illustrating the
proportion of children tell a similar tale, and indicate that in
that part of India the Muhammadans are not only "more enter-
[* At the Census of 1911 Hindus, including Animists, numbered 227 millions (62 per
cent, of the whole population) ; Muhammadans 66J millions (2I'2 per cent.) ; Buddhists lof
millions (3-4 per cent.) ; Christians 3^ millions (i '2 per cent.). The percentages of increase
since igoi were for Hindus 5 per cent. ; Muhammadans 7 per cent, j Buddhists 13 per cent. ;
Christians 32 per cent. {Census of India Report, 1911, vol. i., p. 119 et seq.).'\
CASTE AND RELIGION 247
prising and therefore better off than their Hindu neighbours,"
but also more prolific and more careful of their offspring. The
reasons are not far to seek. The diet of the Muhammadans is
more nourishing and more varied ; they are free from the
damnosa hereditas of infant marriage enforced by social
ostracism ; they are under no temptation to practise female
infanticide ; they marry their girls at a more reasonable age,
and fewer females become widows while still capable of bearing
children. The influence of the itinerant preachers of Islam in
its original purity is fast eradicating any tendency to imitate
the Hindu prohibition of widow marriage, and Muhammadan
widows escape the trials and temptations which beset the
Hindu woman who is so unfortunate as to lose her husband
while she is still young and attractive. As is pointed out in the
Census Report of 1901, "in the case of the intrigues in which
widows so often indulge, the Hindu female who thus becomes
enceinte resorts to abortion, while the Musalmani welcomes the
prospect of a child as means of bringing pressure upon her
paramour and inducing him to marry her."
Conversions from Hinduism to Islam must also contribute
in some degree to the relatively more rapid growth of the
Muhammadan population. Here no appeal to statistics is
possible, but a number of specific instances of such changes of
religion were extracted by Mr. Gait, c.i.e.,
from the reports of Hindu and Muhammadan HiAuenc^e o^ conver-
gentlemen in twenty-four districts and pub-
lished as Appendix II. to the Bengal Census Report of 1901.
The motives assigned in various cases — names and particulars
are usually given — may be grouped somewhat as follows : —
(i) Genuine religious conviction of the purity and simplicity
of Islam, derived from study of the Muhammadan scriptures or
from the preaching of the Maulavis who go round the villages.
The conversion of high-caste Hindus, Brahmans, Rajputs,
Kayasths and the like is commonly ascribed to this cause. We
hear, for example, from a Hindu source, of a wealthy Kayasth
landholder of Eastern Bengal, who was suspected of holding
unorthodox views, and consequently found difficulties in getting
his daughter married. Indignant at what he deemed persecu-
tion, he openly embraced Islam, assumed a Muhammadan
name, and testified to his zeal by sacrificing cows "in the
precincts of the very building where his father had worshipped
the Hindu gods." Muhammadan society gave him a cordial
welcome, and his daughter married into a high-class family.
248 PEOPLE OF INDIA
His wife, however, refused to change her religion and went
back to her own people.
(2) The growing desire on the part of the lower Hindu
castes to improve their social position leads individuals among
them to embrace a creed which seems to offer them a fair
chance in life. Malis, Kahars, Goalas, Napits, Kans, Beldars and
other castes of similar status furnish numerous illustrations of
this tendency.
(3) The proverb " Love laughs at caste " accounts for a
large number of conversions. Hindus of all ranks of society
succumb to the charms of good-looking Musalmani girls, and
Muhammadans show themselves equally susceptible to the
attractions of Hindu maidens. Hindu widows seek a refuge
from their dreary lot in marriage with Muhammadans, while
Hindu men who have been caught out in liaisons with girls of
lower caste — an affair with a pretty gipsy is one of the instances
cited — and find themselves socially stranded, prefer the respecta-
bility of Islam to the mixed company of some dubious Vaishnava
sect. In all such cases Islam gains and Hinduism loses, for
caste rules are rigid and no individual can become a Hindu.
These irregular attachments sometimes give rise to embarrass-
ing situations. A Hindu gentleman of Eastern Bengal relates
how a high-caste Hindu physician saw in the course of his
practice a very handsome Muhammadan girl and fell so hope-
lessly in love that he wanted to marry her. Her father insisted
that he must turn Muhammadan, but after he had done so
refused to give him the girl. Meanwhile he had of course been
cast off by his own people and had become a social derelict.
(4) Causes connected with taboos on food and drink and
with various caste misdemeanours have also to be taken into
account. Hindus in sickness or distress are tended by
Muhammadans and take food and water from their hands ; the
caste excommunicates them and they join the ranks of a more
merciful faith.
It is needless to observe that none of these causes, nor all
of them taken together, exercise an influence wide or potent
enough to bring about a great Islamic revival in India. The
day of conversions en masse has passed, and there are no signs
of its return. Nevertheless certain tendencies are discernible
which may add materially to the number of individual con-
versions. On the one hand, the Muhammadans may raise their
standard of education, they may organize and consolidate their
influence, they may establish their claim to larger representa-
CASTE AND RELIGION 249
tion in the Legislative Councils and in Government service,
and they may thus come to play in Indian public life a part
more worthy of the history and traditions of their faith. On
the other hand, the spread of English education among the
middle and lower ranks of Hindus may lead to a revolt against
the intolerance of the higher castes, and in particular against
their virtual monopoly of place and power. In Southern India
whole castes have been known to become Muhammadans
because the Brahmans would not allow them to enter Hindu
temples and compelled them to worship outside. It is con-
ceivable that other castes in other parts of India will some day
realize that for the low-born Hindu the shortest road to success
in life, whether at the bar or in the public service, may lie through
the portals of Islam.
Faithful to its earliest traditions, Christianity in India has
from the first devoted itself to the poor and lowl}', and its most
conspicuous successes have been attained among the Animists
and the depressed castes on the margin of Hinduism. To the
Animist haunted by a crowd of greedy and malevolent demons
ever thirsting for blood, like the ghosts that influence of Chris-
flocked round Ulysses, Christianity opens a tianity on the low-
new world of love and hope. To the Pariah, °*^*^^-
the Mahar, the Dher and a host of other helots it promises
release from the most searching and relentless form of social
tyranny — the tyranny of caste; it offers them independence,
self-respect, education, advancement, a new life in an organized
and progressive society. " These people," says Mr. Francis,*
writing of the Pariahs of the South, " have little to lose by
forsaking the creed of their forefathers. As long as they
remain Hindus they are daily and hourly made to feel that
they are of commoner clay than their neighbours. Any
attempts which they may make to educate themselves or their
children are actively discouraged by the classes above them :
caste restrictions prevent them from quitting the toilsome,
uncertain and undignified means of subsistence to which
custom has condemned them, and taking to a handicraft or a
trade : they are snubbed and repressed on all public occasions :
are refused admission even to the temples of their gods ; and
can hope for no more helpful partner of their joys and sorrows
than the unkempt and unhandy maiden of the pdrdcheri] with
her very primitive notions of comfort and cleanliness.
[* Census Report, Madras, 1901, vol. i., p. 41 et seg.l
t The ghetto of the typical South Indian village where the Pariahs herd together in
irregular clusters of squalid palm-leaf huts.
2SO PEOPLE OF INDIA
" But once a youth from among these people becomes
Christian his whole horizon changes. He is as carefully
educated as if he was a Brahman ; he is put in the way of
learning a trade or obtaining an appointment as a clerk ; he is
treated with kindness and even familiarity by missionaries who
belong to the ruling race ; he takes an equal part with his
elders and betters in the services of the church ; and in due
time he can choose from among the neat-handed girls of the
Mission a vAie skilled in domestic matters and even endowed
with some little learning. Nowadays active persecution of
converts to Christianity is rare. So those who hearken to its
teaching have no martyr's crown to wear, and sheltered, as they
often are, in a compound round the missionary's bungalow, it
matters little to its adherents if their neighbours look askance
upon them. The remarkable growth in the numbers of the
Native Christians thus largely proceeds from the natural and
laudable discontent with their lot which possesses the lower
classes of the Hindus, and so well do the converts, as a class,
use their opportunities that the community is earning for itself
a constantly improving position in the public estimation."
In the face of this testimony can any one say that Christian
Missions have been a failure in India ? To me at any rate it
seems beyond question that the Missions which have devoted
themselves to the Animists and the Helots chose their field
wisely and worked it well. The fruit, no doubt, has not yet
been brought to perfection, but if due allowance is made for
the inherited tendencies of the converts, and the conditions in
which they live, those who are responsible for this branch of
missionary effort in India have no reason to be ashamed of
their labours. They have been guided by the spirit of the
apostolic age ; they have achieved much and they may yet
accomplish more. There are, however, other missions which
have worked on more ambitious lines and have set before
themselves the ideal of converting the higher castes among the
Hindus, in the hope that Christianity would filter downwards
through the masses in the same way as Brahmanism, and thus
would ultimately bring about the fulfilment
S?het£ cas'e^ of M. Saint Hilaire's anticipation, " que Vlnde
fimra par itre Chrihenne tout enttere." It is
to these missions that my friend the Bishop of Madras refers
when he says in a recent number of The Nineteenth Century that
the Missionary "attacks which have been made for the last
fifty years upon positions of almost impregnable strength , . .
CASTE AND RELIGION 251
undoubtedly have failed so far as the main purpose of Christian
missions is concerned, viz. the winning of converts to faith in
Christ and the building up of the Christian Church." The
Bishop ascribes this failure to the operation of two causes.
" The advance of higher education," he says, " has perceptibly
increased the friction and antagonism between Europeans and
Indians, and this has necessarily reacted strongly upon the
attitude of educated Indians towards Christianity." The second
cause is the influence of caste. The Bishop says — " The great
obstacle to the conversion of the upper ranks of society is the
impenetrable barrier of caste. The social system inflicts such
tremendous penalties on conversion to Christianity that a
convert from the higher castes is truly a miracle."
All this is unquestionably true, but I am not sure that it is
the whole truth. The antagonism to Europeans as such is a
tendency of comparatively recent growth, and I should prefer
to attribute it to the shortcomings of educational methods in
India rather than to regard it as a necessary consequence of
higher education itself May we not hope that this phase will
pass away and that wider culture and freer social intercourse
will bring with them a larger faith and will lead at any rate to
wise tolerance of the small body of European fellow-workers
in a common cause to whose honest if sometimes unsympathetic
eff'orts the educated classes in India owe the position that they
now occupy and the privileges that they enjoy ? Intellectual
self-consciousness on the one side and racial aloofness on the
other are defects which time and mutual forbearance may be
expected to cure. The old order of things is visibly passing
away ; much will depend upon the tact and discretion
of the leaders of both races by whom the new order is
introduced.
The Bishop rightly dwells on the essential antagonism
between the spirit of caste and the spirit of Christian teaching.
The enthusiasm of humanity can make no terms with the
principle of hereditary taboo. Not only are there no signs of
any rapprochement between the two sets of ideas, but the
inducement to seek in Christianity a refuge from the tyranny
of caste has of late years been sensibly weakened by the
modern tendency to relax those minor restrictions relating to
food, drink, and travel which weighed heavily upon the educated
classes. Within certain wide limits an advanced Indian can
now do pretty much what he pleases in respect of such
matters, and the probability of his turning Christian in order
252 PEOPLE OF INDIA
to escape vexatious social penalties has thereby become
appreciably more remote.
While admitting the validity of the reasons assigned by
the Bishop for the failure of Christianity to attract the upper
classes of India, I may perhaps be permitted to suggest that
other and less obvious causes have contributed to the result.
Caste, after all, is a fluid and variable institution which is ready
enough to adapt itself to circumstances when called upon to
surrender in sufficiently imperative terms. Had Christianity
been presented in a form more congenial to the mystical Indian
temperament, with the Logos as a humanized version of the
paramdtma, one can imagine that it might have stood a better
chance of success. Caste certainly would not have permanently
blocked its path, any more than it succeeded in arresting the
progress of Islam. Why then has Hinduism, hampered as it
is, at any rate to outward view, by an unedifying mythology,
a grotesque Pantheon, a burdensome ritual, a corrupt priest-
hood, and above all by the taint of palpable idolatry, retained
its sway over the higher minds to whom a simpler and purer
faith might have been expected to offer irresistible attractions ?
The main reason seems to be that to the educated Hindu
religion is largely a matter of the intellect. He demands from
it not merely spiritual comfort but philosophical conviction.
A religion which rests upon no metaphysical basis, and which
in his view does not even attempt to solve the great problems
of life, cannot expect to command his acceptance. With all its
shortcomings of precept and practice, Hinduism at least has
behind it a philosophy which, in spite or perhaps because of
its indolent pessimism, satisfies the Eastern mind and has
fascinated some of the leading intellects of the West. To
despair with Goethe and Schopenhauer is to despair in good
company. In the domain of religion mere temperament counts
for a good deal, and the Indian whose critical sense rejects as
incredible the evidences of the Christian revelation finds no
difficulty in accepting by intuition the Pantheistic dream which
underlies his own philosophy. Nor does the strength of
Hinduism lie only in its metaphy.sics. There are those who
hold that the idea of karma, the theory that on each sin as it is
committed there is passed a judgment from which there is no
appeal, stands on a higher plane and exercises a greater moral
influence than the Christian doctrines of repentance and the
forgiveness of sins. The belief in a spiritual backstairs does
not necessarily make for righteousness.
CASTE AND RELIGION 253
These seem to be among the leading motives that tend
to deter the educated Hindu from seeking in Christianity a
solution of the problems with which his speculative tempera-
ment has for centuries been occupied. Of late years their
strength has been greatly enhanced by the
., c ,.u -J r T J- i.- Ti Nationalism and
growth 01 the idea of an Indian nationality. the Arya Samaj.
Indefinite and rudimentary as this idea is, it
nevertheless inspires the small body of men who are possessed
by it with the strongest antipathy to anything of foreign origin
that is not absolutely indispensable, whether it be a particular
religion or a particular form of textile manufactures. It is a
notable fact that the Hindu sectarian movement which appeals
most strongly to the educated classes is bitterly opposed to
Christianity, and lays itself out not merely to counteract the
efforts of missionaries, but to reconvert to Hinduism high-caste
men who have become Christians.
The Arya Samaj, founded about 1875 by Dayananda Saras wati
on the basis of the infallibility of the four Vedas, stands out at
the present time as the most conspicuous movement within the
vast miscellany of beliefs and superstitions which go to make
up the religion of the Hindus. It may, indeed, almost be
described as a nationalist development of Hinduism. Taking
their stand upon the Vedas,_as the divinely inspired scriptures
of the Indo-Aryan race, the Aryas discover in them, by a liberal
method of symbolical interpretation, not merely an ample store
of moral and spiritual guidance, but " the germ of all modern
knowledge including physical science." * They seek to revive
Vedic practice in the matter of marriage, and hold that a girl
should on no account be married before thirteen, and would do
better to wait till she is fourteen or even sixteen. Young men
ought not to marry before eighteen at the earliest. Widows
are allowed to marry again, and several such marriages have
taken place in high-caste Arya families. One of the primary
duties of the sect is to " diffuse knowledge and dispel ignorance,"
and in pursuance of this precept they have already founded a
number of educational institutions, the most important of which
is the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic College at Lahore.
The Arya movement has undoubtedly derived a great
accession of force from its intimate association with the
Khatris, whom Sir George Campbell described more than
forty years agp as "one of the most acute, energetic, and
* Report on the Census of the N,-W. P. and Qudh, igoi, by R. Burn, l.c.s., vol, i., p. 91.
254 PEOPLE OF INDIA
. remarkable races in India," and as being in the Punjab " all
that Maratha Brahmans are in the Maratha country, besides
engrossing the trade which the Maratha Brahmans have not.
They are not usually military in their character, but are quite
capable of using the sword when necessary." It is hardly an
exaggeration to discover in the Khatris an epitome of the three
twice-born castes of the traditional Hindu system. By founding
the Sikh religion, and by continuing to furnish its priests, they
have exercised within a sphere of some importance an influence
elsewhere confined to the Brahmans. Their record of admini-
strative and military success as ministers to the Mughal
Emperors, as governors of Multan, Peshawar, and Badakhshan,
and as generals in the Sikh army, is appealed to in support of
their claim to be the modern representatives
Khatria ^ of the ancient Kshatriyas; while by their
activity in trade and their prominence in the
ranks of the legal profession they have more than absorbed
the functions of the ancient Vaisyas. A movement of this type,
promoted by such influential supporters, seems to be of high
promi^se, and may even contain the germ of a national religion.
The Aryas start with a definite creed resting upon scriptures
of great antiquity and high reputation ; their teaching is of a
bold and masculine type and is free from the limp eclecticism
which has proved fatal to the Brahmo Samaj ; they have had
the courage to face the vital question of marriage reform ; and
finally, they recognize the necessity of proselytism and do not
hesitate to say "those who are not with us are against us."
These are elements of strength, and the movement seems likely
to gather to itself many adherents among the educated classes.
Whether it will spread beyond the relatively small circle of
literates seems to depend upon the reception that it meets with
from the Brahmans who cater for the spiritual needs of the
masses of the people.* Seeing that the Aryas condemn offer-
ings to idols, pilgrimages, and bathing in sacred rivers, it
seems doubtful whether the priests who live by promoting
[* In Bengal, "unlike the United Provinces, where the Samaj is largely recruited from
the educated classes, the Aryas of Patna are mostly members of the lower castes, such as
Kurmis, Kahars, etc. ; its doctrines have found favour with only a limited number of Hindus
and Musalmans of the higher classes. The explanation is that the theory of the submergence
of caste in the Arya community appeals most to the lower classes, who regard the new system
as improving their position and bringing them on a level with the upper classes. Moreover,
the custom of widow marriage was already an established custom with many of them, and
the sanction given to this practice by the new faith was no small attraction " {Census Report,
Bengal, 1911, vol. i., p. 211).]
CASTE AND RELIGION 255
these modes of propitiating the gods will regard the new
movement with favour. No signs of such a tendency are at
present visible. But within its own sphere of influence the
movement has achieved remarkable success. It offers to the
educated Hindu a comprehensive body of doctrine purporting
to be derived from Indian documents and traditions, and
embodying schemes of social and educational advancement
without which no real national progress is possible. In this
revival of Hinduism, touched by reforming zeal and animated
by patriotic enthusiasm, Christianity is likely to find a formidable
obstacle to its spread among the educated classes.
If follows from what has been already said that the
supremacy of Hinduism as the characteristic religion of India
is not as yet seriously threatened. The Animistic hem of the
garment may, indeed, be rent off, and its fragments parted
among rival faiths. But the garment itself, woven of many
threads and. glowing with various colours, will remain intact
and will continue to satisfy the craving for spiritual raiment of
a loose and elastic texture which possesses the Indian mind.
It has often been said that the advance of
English education, and fnore especially of mndu^sm°
the teaching of physical science, will make
short work of the Hindu religion, and that the rising generation
of Hindus is doomed to wander without guidance in the
wilderness of agnosticism. This opinion seems to lose sight
of some material considerations. Science, no doubt, is a
powerful solvent of mythology and tradition, and the " seas of
treacle and seas of butter " over which Macaulay made merry
in his famous Minute are not likely to resist its destructive
influence. But the human mind is hospitable and the Indian
intellect has always revelled in the subtleties of a logic which
undertakes to reconcile the most manifestly contradictory
propositions. Men whose social and family relations compel
them to lead a double life, will find little difficulty in keeping
their religious beliefs and their scientific convictions in separate
mental compartments. Putting aside, however, casuistry of
this kind, an inevitable feature of a period of transition, it may
fairly be said, in justice to the adaptability of Hinduism, that
a religion which has succeeded in absorbing Animism is not
likely to strain at swallowing science; The doctrine oi Karma,
which in one of its aspects may be regarded as a sort of moral
totalisator infallibly recording the good and bad actions of men,
admits of being represented, in another aspect, as an ethical
2S6 PEOPLE OF INDIA
anticipation of the modern determinist doctrine that character
and circumstance are the lords of life ; that the one is a matter
of heredity and the other a matter of accident, and that the idea
of man being master of his fate is no better than a pleasing
fiction conjured up by human fantasy to flatter human egotism.
Nor is this the last refuge of Hinduism. If it appeals to the
intellect by its metaphysical teaching, it also touches the
emotions by the beatific vision which it ofi'ers to the heart and
the imagination. Sir G. Grierson * may or may not be right in
holding that the doctrine of bhakti or ecstatic devotion, which
has played so large a part in the later developments of
Hinduism, was borrowed by Chaitanya from Christian sources.
To some minds the evidence in support of this view may
appear rather conjectural. But whatever may have been its
origin, the idea has now taken its place among the characteristic
teachings of Hinduism ; it has been absorbed in the fullest
sense of the word. And a religion which rests both on
philosophy and on sentiment is likely to hold its ground
until the Indian temperament itself undergoes some essential
change.
[*,See Art. Bhakti-mdrga, in J. Hastings' Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. ii.
1909. P- 539 It ^f?-]
CHAPTER VI
THE ORIGIN OF CASTE
Les dieux jaloux ont enfoui quelque part les tdmoignages de la descendance des
choses. — De Guirin.
No one can have studied the literature of social origins
which has been so prolific of late years without feeling the
force of Sir Henry Maine's remark that theories of primitive
society are apt to land the enquirer in a region of " mud banks
and fog." More especially is this the case in India, where the
palaeological data available in Europe hardly exist at all, while
the historical value of the literary evidence is impaired by the
uncertainty of its dates, by the sacerdotal predilections of its
authors, by their passion for wire-drawn distinctions and
symmetrical classifications, and by their manifest inability to
draw any clear line between fact and fancy, between things as
they are and things as they might be, or as a Brahman would
desire them to be. All these points are obvious at a glance ;
they merely reflect the idiosyncrasies of the Indian intellect,
its phenomenal memory, its feeble grasp of questions of fact,
its subtle manipulation of impalpable theories, its scanty
development of the critical faculty. Its strength lies in other
lines of mental activity, in a region of transcendental specula-
tion which does not lead to the making of history.
These general grounds, which any enquirer can verify for
himself at the shortest notice, might be
^, I ^ i • <.-r ■ ..<.■ -J The origin of caste.
thought to justify us in putting aside, as an
insoluble and unprofitable conundrum, the much-discussed
question of the origin of caste. But the Indian tradition as to
the origin of caste is so inextricably mixed up with the most
modern developments of the system ; its influence is so widely
diffused ; and it forms so large a part of the working conscious-
ness of the Hindu population of India that it can hardly be left
out of account merely because it has no foundation in fact. It
R, PI 17
258 PEOPLE OF INDIA
is indeed a fact in itself, a belief which has played, and continues
to play, a large part in the shaping of Indian society, and whose
curious vitality throws an instructive light on the inner workings
of the Indian mind. To endeavour to understand the people of
India, to enter into their point of view, and realize how things
strike them, is the first condition of successful administration.
As the work of Government becomes more complex and touches
the life of the people at a greater number of points, as new
interests spring up and old interests assume novel forms, the
stronger is the obligation to know as much as possible of the
society which our rule is insensibly but steadily modifying.
The study of the facts is therefore essential, and we must take
the theories, whether Indian or European, along with them.
The search for origins, like the quest of the Sangreal, possesses
endless fascination, and if it does not yield any very tangible
results, it at least has the merit of encouraging research.
Several theories of the origin of caste are to be found in the
literature of the subject. The oldest and most famous is
accepted as an article of faith by all orthodox Hindus, and its
attraction extends, as each successive Census shows, through
an ever-widening circle of aspirants to social distinction. It
„, ^ ,. , appears in its most elaborate form in the
The Indian theory. . . , i. ,. r -.i. i. • • i i r
tenth chapter of that curious jumble of
magic, religion, law, custom, ritual, and metaphysics, which is
commonly called the Institutes of Manu. Here we read how
the Anima Mundi, the supreme soul which "contains all created
beings and is inconceivable," produced by a thought a golden egg,
in which " he himself was born as Brahman, the progenitor of
the whole world." Then "for the sake of the prosperity of the
worlds, he caused the Brahmana, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya,
and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arms, his thighs,
and his feet," and allotted to each of these their distinctive
duties. The Brahman was enjoined to study, teach, sacrifice,
and receive alms ; the Kshatriya to protect the people and
abstain from sensual pleasures ; the Vaisya to tend cattle, to
trade, to lend money, and to cultivate land; while for the
Sudra was prescribed the comprehensive avocation of meekly
serving the other three groups. Starting from this basis, the
standard Indian tradition proceeds to trace the evolution of the
caste system from a series of complicated crosses, first between
members of the four original groups and then between the
descendants of these initial unions. The men of the three
higher groups might marry women of any of the groups below
THE ORIGIN OF CASTE
them, and if the wife belonged to the group next in ofd^ of
precedence the children took her rank, and no new,^ste was
formed. If, howevf?»^e mother came frojj^.a'gfTkfp lower down
in the scale, her ^hildrHn belefftgsd-neifher to her group nor to
their father's^ bi:;t formed a distinct caste called by a different
name. Thus the son of a Brahman by a Vaisya woman is an
Ambastha, to whom belongs the art of healing ; while if the
mother is a Sudra, the son is a Nishada and must live by killing
fish. The son of a Kshatriya father and a Sudra mother is " a
being called Ugra, resembling both a Kshatriya and a Sudra,
ferocious in his manners and delighting in cruelty." In all of
these the father is of higher rank than the mother, and the
marriages are held to have taken place in the right ord§r
(anuloma, or " with the hair "). Unions of the converse type, in
which the woman belongs to a superior group, are condemned
as pratiloma, or "against the hair.'' The extreme instance of the
fruit oipratiloma relations is the Chandal, the son of a Sudra by
a Brahman woman, who is described as "that lowest of mortals,"
and is condemned to live outside the village, to clothe himself
in the garments of the dead, to eat from broken dishes, to
execute criminals, and to carry out the corpses of friendless
men. But the Ayogavas, with a Sudra father and a Kshatriya
mother, are not much better off, for the accident of their birth
is sufificient to brand them as wicked people who eat repre-
hensible food. Alliances between the descendants of these
first crosses produce among others the Sairandhra, who is
" skilled in adorning his master " and pursues as an alternative
occupation the art of snaring animals ; and " the sweet-voiced
Maitreyaka, who, ringing a bell at the appearance of dawn,
continually praises great men." Finally, a fresh series of
connubial complications is introduced by the Vratya, the twice-
born men who have neglected their sacred duties and have
among their direct descendants the Malla, the Licchivi, the
Nata, the Karana, the Khasa, and the Dravida, while each of these
in its turn gives rise to further mazes of hypothetical parentage.
It is small wonder that European critics should have been
so impressed by the unreal character of this ^^ ^. ^ . ,
*^ , ■' r -1 1 X- ^1 ^ Its historic elements,
grotesque scheme of social evolution, that
some of them have put it aside without further examination as
a mere figment of' the systematizing intellect of the ingenious
Brahman. Yet, fantastic as it is, it opens indirectly and
unconsciously an instructive glimpse of pre-historic society
in India. It shows us that at the time when Manu's treatise
26o PEOPLE OF INDIA
was cdmpiled, probably about the second century A.D., there
must hav^~ existed an elaborate and highly developed social
system, includttig~trib,al or national groups like the Magadha,
Vaideha, Malla, Licchivi;--4Cl}asar, sDravida, S|ka, Kirata, and
Chandal ; and functional groups sutly as the 'Anibastha, who
were physicians, the Suta, who were concerned with horses
and chariots, the Nishada, and the Margavas, Dasas, orKaivartas
who were fishermen, the Ayogava, carpenters, the Karavara
and Dhigvansa, workers in leather, and the Vena, musicians and
players on the drum.* It is equally clear that the occupations
of Brahmans were as diverse as they are at the present day,
and that their position in this respect was just as far removed
from that assigned to them by the traditional theory. In the
list of Brahmans whom a pious householder should not enter-
tain at a srdddha t we find physicians ; temple-priests ; sellers
of meat ; shopkeepers ; usurers ; cowherds ; actors ; singers ;
oilmen; keepers of gambling houses ; sellers of spices ; makers
of bows and arrows ; trainers of elephants, oxen, horses or
camels ; astrologers ; bird-fanciers ; fencing-masters ; archi-
tects ; breeders of sporting dogs ; falconers ; cultivators ;
shepherds ; and even carriers of dead bodies. The conclusions
suggested by the passages cited from Manu are confirmed by
Dr. Richard Pick's instructive study X of the structure of society
in Bihar and the eastern districts of the United Provinces at the
time of Buddha. Dr. Fick's work is based mainly upon the
Jatakas or " birth-stories " of the southern Buddhists, and from
these essentially popular sources, free from any suggestion of
Brahmanical influence, he succeeds in showing that, at the
period depicted, the social organization in the part of India
with which his authorities were familiar did not differ very
materially from that which prevails at the present day. Then,
as now, the traditional hierarchy of four castes had no distinct
and determinate existence ; still less had the so-called mixed
castes supposed to be derived from them ; while of the Sudras
in particular no trace at all was to be found. Then, as now,
Indian society was made up of a medley of diverse and hetero-
geneous groups, apparently not so strictly and uniformly
endogamous as the castes of to-day, but containing within
* Laws of Manu, G. Biihler, X, 22, 34, 36, 44.
t Laws of Manu, III, 151 — 166.
\ Die Sociale Gliederung im NordoslHchen Indian zu Buddha's Zeit. Von Dr. Richard
Pick, Kiel, 1897. [T. W. Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, 1903, p. 32 et seq. ; Journal
Royal Asiatic Society, 1901, p. 868.]
• THE ORIGIN 0:E>CASTE 261
themselves -tfee'gernTs oiir"or~Which the modern system has
developed by natural and insensible stages. That development
has been furthered by a Variety of influences which will be
discussed below.
Assuming that the writers of the law-books had before their
eyes the same kind of social chaos that ,
. . ,.1. r: i ^- ii i ^ Its probable origin,
exists now, the first question that occurs to
one is : — From what source did they derive the theory of the
four castes ? Manu, of course, as Sir Henry Maine has pointed
out, is a relatively modern work; but the traditional scheme
of castes figures in earlier law-books, such as Baudhayana and
Apastamba, and it seems probable that for them it was not
so much a generalization from observed facts as a traditional
theory, derived from still older authorities, which they
attempted to stretch so as to explain the facts. The Indian
pandit does not take kindly to inductive methods, nor is it easy
to see how he could have arrived by this road at a hypothesis
which breaks down directly it is brought into contact with the
realities of life. But it is possible that the Brahmanical theory
of castes may be nothing more than a modified version of the
division of society into four classes — priests, warriors, culti-
vators, and artisans — which appears in the sacerdotal litera-
ture of ancient Persia.* It is true, no doubt, that the Iranian
groups, with the exception of the Athravans or priests, appear
not to have been endogamous, and to have observed none of
the restrictions on marriage which are so prominent in the
Indian system. But we know very little about them, and it is
possible that their matrimonial relations may have been
governed by the practice of hypergamy which is apt to arise
under a regime of classes as distinguished from castes. Let
me make my meaning clear. It is not suggested that the
Iranian legend of four classes formed part of the stock of tradi-
tion that the Aryans brought with them into India. Had this
been so, the myth relating to their origin would have figured
prominently in the Vedas, and would not have appeared solely
in the Purusha Sukta, which most critics agree in regarding as
a modern interpolation. The conjecture is that the relatively
modern compilers of the law-books, having become acquainted
with the Iranian, legend, were fascinated by its assertion of
priestly supremacy, and made use of it as the basis of the
theory by which they attempted to explain the manifold
* Spiegel, Eranische Alterthumskunde, III, 547 — 670,
N
262 PEC^LE OF INDIA
complexities of the caste syst(^m.' TKe procedure is character-
istic of Brahmanical literary methods, and is in itself no more
absurd than the recent attempt on the part of the Arya Samaj
to discover in the Rig Veda an anticipation of the discoveries
of modern science, and to interpret the horse sacrifice in
Sukta 162 as an allegorical exposition of the properties of heat
or electricity.*
The resemblance between the two schemes is striking
enough to suggest that it can hardly be the
Man 'classes. result of a mere accidental coincidence,
but that the Indian theory must have been
modelled on the Iranian, t The differences in the categories
are trifling, and admit of being accounted for by the fact that
India has, what Persia had not, a large aboriginal population
differing from the Indo-Aryans in respect of religion, usages,
and physical type, and more especially in the conspicuous
attribute of colour. These people had somehow to be brought
within the limits of the scheme; and this was done by the
simple process of lumping them together in the servile class of
Sudras, which is sharply distinguished from the twice-born
groups and has a far lower status than is assigned to the
artizans in the Iranian system. Thus the four varnas, or
colours, of the Indian myth seem to occupy an intermediate
position between the purely occupational classes of ancient
Persia and Egypt and the rigidly defined castes of modern
India. In the Persian system only the highest group of
Athravans or priests was endogamous, while between the
other three groups, as between all the groups of the Egyptian
system (excluding the swineherds if we follow Herodotus), no
restrictions on intermarriage appear to have been recognized.
Moreover, as is implied by the distinction between the twice-
born classes and the Sudras, and by the prominence given to the
element of colour {varna), the Indian system rests upon a basis
of racial antagonism of which there is no trace in Persia and
Egypt. Yet in the stage of development portrayed in the law-
books the system has not hardened into the rigid mechanism
* R. Burn, Cetisus Report of the United Provinces, 1901, vol. i., p. 91.
[f " There is no probability in the view of Senart or Risley {Imperial Gazetteer of India,
I> 336 — 348), that the names of the old classes were later super-imposed artificially on a
system of castes that were different from them in origin. We cannot say that the castes
existed before the classes, and that the classes were borrowed by India from Iran, as Risley
maintains, ignoring the early Brahmana evidence for the four Varnas, and treating the
transfer as late." A. A. Macdonald, A. B. Keith, A Vedic Index of Names and Subjects,
1912,11, 270.]
THE ORIGIN OF CASTE 263
of the present day. It is still more or less fluid ; it admits of
intermarriage under the limitations imposed by the rule of
hypergamy ; it represents caste in the making, not caste as it
has since been made. This process of caste-making has indeed
by no means come to an end. Fresh castes are constantly
being formed, and wherever we can trace the stages of their
evolution they seem to proceed on the lines followed in the
traditional scheme. The first stage is for a number of families,
who discover in themselves some quality of social distinction,
to refuse to give their women in marriage to other members of
the caste, from whom nevertheless they continue to take wives.
After a time, when their numbers have increased, and they
have bred women enough to supply material for a jus connubii
of their own, they close their ranks, marry only among them-
selves, and pose as a superior sub-caste of the main caste to
which they belong. Last of all, they break off all connexion
with the parent stock, assume a new name which ignores or
disguises their original affinities, and claim general recognition
as a distinct caste. The educated Pods of Bengal are an illus-
tration of the first stage ; the Chasi Kaibartta of the second ;
the Mahisya of the third.
We may now pass from the pious fictions of Manu and the
Ramayana to those modern critical theories
which, whether they carry conviction or ibbe1;s'o?rtheory.
not, at least start from and give full weight
to the facts, and make an honest attempt to work out a scien-
tific solution of the problem. Among these Sir Denzil Ibbet-
son's description* of caste in the Punjab contains the most
vivid presentment of the system in its everyday working, of
the various elements which have contributed to its making, and
of the surprising diversity of the results which have been pro-
duced. The picture is an admirable piece of open-air work;
it has been drawn on the spot ; it is full of local colour ; and it
breathes throughout the quaint humour of the peasantry of the
Punjab, the manliest and most attractive of all the Indian races.
From this wealth of material it is not altogether easy to dis-
entangle the outlines of a cut-and-dried theory, and it may well
have been the intention of the writer to leave the question
more or less open, and to refrain from the futile endeavour to
compress such infinite variety within the limits of any formula.
The following passage sums up the leading features of the
* Report on the Census oj the Punjab, 1881, pp. 172 — 341.
264 PEOPLE OF INDIA
hypothesis, but the exposition of its working requires to be
studied as a whole, and I have, therefore, reproduced in
Appendix V the greater part of the section dealing with the
evolution of caste. The report which I quote has long been
out of print, and foreign ethnologists enquire for copies
in vain.
" Thus, if my theory be correct, we have the following steps
in the process by which caste has been evolved in the Punjab : —
(i) the tribal divisions common to all primitive societies; (2)
the guilds based upon hereditary occupation common to the
middle life of all communities ; (3) the exaltation of the priestly
office to a degree unexampled in other countries; (4) the
exaltation of the Levitical blood by a special insistence upon
the necessarily hereditary nature of occupation ; (s) the preser-
vation and support of this principle by the elaboration from
the theories of the Hindu creed or cosmogony of a purely
artificial set of rules, regulating marriage and intermarriage,
declaring certain occupations and foods to be impure and
polluting, and prescribing the conditions and degree of social
intercourse permitted between the several castes. Add to
these the pride of social rank and the pride of blood which are
natural to man, and which alone could reconcile a nation to
restrictions at once irksome from a domestic and burdensome
from a material point of view ; and it is hardly to be wondered
at that caste should have assumed the rigidity which dis-
tinguishes it in India."
M. Senart's criticism* of this theory is directed to two
points. He demurs, in the first place, to the share which he
supposes it to assign to Brahmanical influence, and challenges
the supposition that a strict code of rules, exercising so abso-
lute a dominion over the consciences of men, could be merely a
modern invention, artificial in its character and self-regarding
in its aims. Secondly, he takes exception to the dispropor-
tionate importance which he conceives Sir Denzil Ibbetson to
attach to community of occupation, and points out that, if this
were really the original binding principle of caste, the ten-
dency towards incessant fission and dislocation would be much
less marked : the force that in the beginning united the various
scattered atoms would continue to hold them together to the
end. Both criticisms appear to miss an essential feature in the
scheme, the influence of the idea of kinship, which is certainly
* Les Castes dans VInde, p. 191.
THE ORIGIN OF CASTE
365
the oldest and probably the most enduring factor in the caste
system, and which seems to have supplied the framework and
the motive principle of the more modern restrictions based
upon ceremonial usage and community of occupation.
Mr. Nesfield* is a theorist of quite a different type. He
feels no doubts and is troubled by no misgivings. Inspired by
the systematic philosophy of Comte, he maps out the whole
confused region of Indian caste into a graduated series of
groups and explains exactly how each has come by the place
that it occupies in the scheme. He assumes as the basis of his
theory the essential unity of the Indian race, and appeals to
" physiological resemblance " to prove that " for the last three
thousand years at least no real difference of
blood between Aryan and aboriginal " has Mr.Nesfleid'stheory.
existed " except perhaps in a few isolated tracts." In his opinion
the conquering Aryan race was absorbed by the indigenous
population as completely as the Portuguese of India have
already become absorbed into Indians, so that no observer
could now distinguish members of the higher castes from the
scavengers who sweep the roads. The homogeneous people
thus formed are divided by Mr. Nesfield, in the area to which
his researches relate, the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh,
into the following seven groups, among which he distributes
the 121 castes enumerated in the census of 188 1 :—
I. Casteless tribes.
II. Castes connected with land —
A. Allied to hunting state.
B. Allied to fishing state.
C. Allied to pastoral state.
D. Agricultural.
E. Landlords and warriors.
III. Artisan castes —
A. Preceding metallurgy.
B. Coeval with metallurgy.
IV. Trading castes.
V. Serving castes.
VI. Priestly castes.
VII. Religious orders.
The classification, it will be observed, is based solely upon
occupation, and it expresses Mr. Nesfield's conviction that "func-
tion, and function only, as I think, was the foundation upon
which the whole caste system of India was built up." The order
of the groups is determined by the principle that " each caste
or group of castes represents one or other of those progressive
stages of culture which have marked the industrial development
of mankind not only in India, but in every other country in the
world wherein some advance has been made from primeval
savagery to the arts and industries of civilized life. The rank
* Brief Vieiv of tht Caste System of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, pp. 3,4, 75,
, 129 — 132.
266 PEOPLE OF INDIA
of any caste as high or low depends upon whether the industry
represented by the caste belongs to an advanced or backward
stage of culture ; and thus the natural history of human indus-
tries affords the chief clue to the gradations as well as to the
formation of Indian castes." At the bottom of the scale are the
more or less primitive tribes — Tharus, Kanjars, Doms, and
Nats — " the last remains and sole surviving representatives of
the aboriginal Indian savage, who was once the only inhabitant
of the Indian continent, and from whose stock the entire caste
system, from the sweeper to the priest, was fashioned by the
slow growth of centuries." Then come the hunting Baheliyas,
the Mallahs, and Dhlmars (boatmen and fishermen), the pastoral
Ahirs and Gadariyas, and the great mass of agriculturists, while
above these Mr. Nesfield finds in the Chattri or Rajput the sole
representative of the landlord and warrior caste. The artisan
castes are subdivided with reference to the supposed priority
of the evolution of their crafts. The basket-making Bansphors,
the weavers (Kori and Jolaha), the potters (Kumhar), and the
oilmen (Teli) fall within the more primitive group antecedent
to metallurgy, while blacksmiths, goldsmiths, tailors, and con-
fectioners are placed in the group coeval with the use of metals.
Above them again come the trading and the serving castes,
among whom we find in rather odd collocation the scavenging
Bhangi, the barber (Napit or Nai), the bard and genealogist
(Bhat), and the Kayasths, who are described as estate managers
and writers. The Brahmans and the religious orders complete
the scheme. But the mere classification obviously offers no
solution of the real problem. How did these groups, which
occur in one form or another all over the world, become
hardened into castes? Why is it that in India alone their
members are absolutely forbidden to intermarry ? Mr. Nesfield
replies without hesitation that the whole series of matrimonial
taboos which constitute the caste system are due to the initia-
tive of the Brahmans. According to him, they introduced for
their own purposes, and in order to secure the dignity and
privileges of their own caste, the rule that a Brahman could
only marry a Brahman, and all the other classes, who up to
that time had intermarried freely, followed their example " partly
in imitation and partly in self-defence." The proposition
recalls the short way that writers of the eighteenth century
were apt to take with historical problems, and reminds one of
Bolingbroke's easy assertion that the sacred literature of Egypt
was invented by the priests. Detailed criticism would be out
THE ORIGIN OF CASTE 267
of place here : the main object of this chapter is to lay stress
on precisely those factors of evolution which Mr. Nesfield
ignores ; but I may observe that a theory which includes in the
same categories the Dom and the Teli, the Banjara and the
Khatri, the Bhangi and the Kayasth must, in the race for accept-
ance, lose a good deal of ground at the start.
After examining the views propounded by Sir Denzil
Ibbetson and Mr. Nesfield, and by myself
in The Tribes and Castes of Bengal, M. Senart ' ^^^^ ^ °°^^'
passes on to formulate his own theory of the origin of caste.
In his view caste is the normal development of ancient Aryan
institutions, which assumed this form in the struggle to adapt
themselves to the conditions with which they came into contact
in India. In developing this proposition he relies greatly upon
the general parallelism that may be traced between the social
organization of the Hindus and that of the Greeks and Romans
in the earlier stages of their national development. He points
out the close correspondence that exists between the three
series of groups — gens, curia, tribe at Rome ; family, fparpia, ^vXi?
in Greece ; and family, gotra, caste in India.* Pursuing the
subject into fuller detail, he seeks to show from the records of
classical antiquity that the leading principles which underlie
the caste system form part of a stock of usage and tradition
common to all branches of the Aryan people. In the depart-
ment of marriage, for example, the Athenian jivog and the
Roman gens present striking resemblances to the Indian gotra.
We learn from Plutarch that the Romans never married a
woman of their own kin, and among the matrons who figure in
classical literature none bears the same gentile name as her
husband. Nor was endogamy unknown. At Athens in the
time of Demosthenes membership of a fparpia was confined to
the offspring of the families belonging to the group. In Rome,
the long struggle of the plebeians to obtain the jus connubii with
patrician women belongs to the same class of facts ; and the
patricians, according to M. Senart, were guarding the endog-
amous rights of their order — or should we not rather say the
hypergamous rights, for in Rome, as in Athens, the primary duty
of marrying a woman of equal rank did not exclude the possi-
bility of union with women of humbler origin, foreigners or
liberated slaves. Their children, like those of a Sudra in the
[* "To assume, with Senart, that the family system was the basis of caste is difficult in face
of the late appearance of words for family and of stress on family." A. A. Macdonell, A.
B. Keith, Vedk Index of Names and Subjects, 1912, I, 2S1 et seg.]
268 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Indian system, were condemned to a lower status by reason of
the gulf of religion that separated their parents. We read in
Manu how the gods disdain the oblations offered by a Sudra :
at Rome they were equally offended by the presence of a
stranger at the sacrifice of the gens. Marriage itself is a sacrifice
at which husband and wife officiate as priests, and their equality
of status is attested by their solemnly eating together. The
Roman confarreatio has its parallel in the got kandla or " tribal
trencher " of the Punjab, the connubial meal by partaking of
which the wife is transferred from her own exogamous group
to that of her husband.
As with marriage so with food. The prohibition, which
strikes us as so strange, on eating with members of another
caste or partaking of food prepared by a man of lower caste,
recalls the religious significance which the Aryans attached to
the common meal of the household. Cooked at the sacred fire,
it symbolized the unity of the family, its life in the present, its
ties with the past. In Rome as in India, daily libations were
offered to ancestors, and the funeral feasts of the Greeks and
Romans (jrspi^uTrvov and silicerniiim) correspond to the sraddha
of Hindu usage which, in M. Senart's view, represents an ideal
prolongation of the family meal. He seems even to find in the
communal meals of the Persians, and in the Roman charistia,
from which were excluded not only strangers but any members
of the family whose conduct had been unworthy, the analogue
of the communal feast at which a social offender in India is
received back to caste. The exclusion from religious and social
intercourse symbolized by the Roman interdict aqua et igni
corresponds to the ancient Indian ritual for expulsion from
caste, where a slave fills the offender's vessel with water and
solemnly pours it out on the ground, and to the familiar formula
hukka pdni band karna, in which the modern luxury of tobacco
takes the place of the sacred fire of the Roman excommunica-
tion. Even the caste panchayat that wields these formidable
sanctions has its parallel in the family councils which in Greece,
Rome, and ancient Germany assisted at the exercise of the
patria poiestas, and in the chief of the gens who, like the mdtabar
of a caste, decided disputes between its members and gave
decisions which were recognized by the State.
How was it that out of this common stock of usage there
were developed institutions so antagonistic in their nature as
the castes of India and the nations of Europe ? To what causes
is it due that among the Aryans of the West all the minor
THE ORIGIN OP CASTE 269
groups have been absorbed in the wider circle of national unity,
while the Indian Aryans have nothing to show in the way of
social organization but a bewildering multitude of castes and
sub-castes ? M. Senart suggests a cause, but makes no attempt
to follow out or to illustrate its workings. He says, "L'Inde
ne s'est elevee ni a I'idee de I'fitat ni a I'idee de la Patrie. Au
lieu de s'etendre, le cadre s'y resserre. Au sein des republiques
antiques la notion des classes tend a se resoudre dans I'idee
plus large de la cite ; dans I'lnde elle s'accuse, elle tend a se
circonscrire dans les cloisons etroites de la caste. N'oublions
pas qu'ici les immigrants se repandaient sur une aire immense ;
les groupements trop vastes etaient condamnes a se disperser.
Dans cettecirconstance les inclinations particularistes puiserent
un supplement de force."
Distribution over a wide area, tending to multiply groups ;
contact with the aborigines, encouraging pride of blood ; the
idea of ceremonial purity, leading to the employment of the
indigenous races in occupations involving manual labour, while
the higher pursuits were reserved for the Aryans ; the influence
of the doctrine of metempsychosis, which assigns to every man
a definite status determined by the inexorable law of karma ;
the absence of any political power to draw the scattered groups
together ; and the authority which the Brahmanical system
gradually acquired — these seem to be the main factors of
M. Senart's theory of caste. It may be urged in favour of his
view of the subject that evolution, especially social evolution,
is a gradual and complex process, that many causes work
together to produce the final result, and that the attempt to
reduce them to a single formula carries with it its own
refutation. On the other hand, as Dr. Fick * has pointed out,
if caste were a normal extension of the ancient Aryan family
system, the absence of any traces of this tendency in the Vedas
' is hardly accounted for by the statement that development
proceeded so slowly, and was based on such primitive and
instinctive impulses, that we could hardly expect to find any
tangible indication of it in a literature like that of the hymns.
Before proceeding further we may dispose of the popular
notion that community of occupation is the „
... ^ ^, ^ , Ti-i-u- Caste not merely
sole basis of the caste system. It this were occupation. The
so, as M. Sajiart has effectively pointed guilds of mediaeval
out, the institution "aurait montre moins de '°^°^^-
tendance a se morceler, a se disloquer ; I'agent qui I'aurait
* Loc. cit., p. 3.
270 PEOPLE OF INDIA
unifiee d'abord en aurait maintenu la cohesion." To put it in
another way, if the current idea were correct, all cultivators,
all traders, all weavers, oUght to belong to the same caste, at
any rate within the same area ; but every one knows that this
is not the case ; that the same occupation embraces a whole
crowd of castes, each of which is a close corporation, though
the members of each carry on in exactly the same way the
avocation that is common to them all. Several writers have
laid stress on the analogy between Indian caste and the trade
guilds of mediaeval Europe. The comparison is misleading.
In the first place, the guild was never endogamous in the sense
that a caste is : there was nothing to prevent a man of one
guild from marrying a girl of another guild. Secondly, there
was no bar to the admission of outsiders who had learned the
business : the guild recruited smart apprentices, just as the
Baloch and Brahiii open their ranks to a fighting-mati who has
proved his worth. The common occupation was a real tie, a
source of strength in the long struggle against nobles and
kings, not a symbol of disunion and weakness like caste in
India. If the guild had been a caste, bound by rigid rules as
to food, marriage, and social intercourse, and split up into a
dozen divisions which could not eat together or intermarry,
the wandering apprentice who was bound to travel for a year
from town to town to learn the secrets of his art, and who
survives, a belated but romantic figure, even at the present day,
could hardly have managed to exist ; still less could he have
discharged, like Quintin Matsys and a host of less famous
craftsmen, the traditional duty of marrying his master's
daughter. It seems, indeed, possible that the decadence and
sterility of Indian art at the present day may be due in some
measure to the trammels by which the caste system has
checked its natural growth. A guild may expand and develop ;
it gives free play to artistic inspiration ; and it was the union
of the guilds that gave birth to the Free Cities of the Middle
Age. A caste is an organism of a lower type ; it grows by
fission ; and each step in its growth detracts from its power
to advance or even to preserve the art which it professes to
practise.
A curious illustration of the inadequacy of occupation alone
to generate and maintain rtie instinct of
Caste under the ^^^^^ ^g ^g g^g j^ ^j. ^^^.j^ jjj j^^jj^ jg
Koman Smpire.
furnished by certain ordinances of the
Theodosian Code. In the early part of the fifth century, when
THE ORIGIN OF CASTE 271
the Western Roman Empire was fast falling to pieces and the
finances had become disorganized, an attempt was made, from
purely fiscal motives, to determine the status and fix the
obligations of all classes of officials. In his fascinating
account of the constitution of society in those days Sir S. Dill
tells us how " an almost Oriental system of caste " had made all
public functions hereditary, "from the senator to the waterman
on the Tiber or the sentinel at a frontier post." * The Navicu-
larii who maintained vessels for transport by sea, the Pistores
who provided bread for the people of Italy, the Pecuarii and
Suarii who kept up the supply of butcher's meat, were all
organized on a system as rigid and tyrannical as that which
prevails in India at the present day. Each caste was bound
down to its characteristic occupation, and its matrimonial
arrangements were governed by the curious rule that a man
must marry within the caste, while if a woman married outside
of it, her husband thereby acquired her status and had to take
on the public duties that went with it. This surprising
arrangement was not a spontaneous growth, like caste in India,
but owed its existence to a law enforced by executive action.
" One of the hardest tasks of the Government," says Sir S.
Dill, "was to prevent the members of these guilds from
deserting or evading their hereditary obligations. It is well
known that the tendency of the later Empire was to stereotype
society, by compelling men to follow the occupation of their
fathers, and preventing a free circulation among different
callings and grades of life. The man who brought the grain
of Africa to the public stores at Ostia, the baker who made
it into loaves for distribution, the butchers who brought pigs
from Samnium, Lucania, or Bruttium, the purveyors of wine
and oil, the men who fed the furnaces of the public baths,
were bound to their callings from one generation to another.
It was the principle of rural serfdom applied to social functions.
Every avenue of escape was closed. A man was bound to his
calling not only by his father's but by his mother's condition.f
Men were not permitted to marry out of their guild. If the
daughter of one of the baker caste married a man not belonging
to it, her husband was bound to her father's calling. Not even
a dispensation obtained by some means from the imperial
♦ Roman Society in the last Century of the Western Empire, Book iii, Chap, i, 1899,
p. 228.
t C. Th. xiv, 4, 8, " ad munus pristinura revocentur, tarn qui paterno quam materno
genere inveniuntur obnoxii" ; \pill, of. cit., p., 233.]
2/2 PEOPLE OF INDIA
chancery, not even the power of the Church, could avail to
break the chain of servitude." There was even a caste of
curiales or, as we should say in India, municipal commissioners, .
of whom we read that at a certain time all of them were ordered
back to their native cities, and were forbidden to evade their
hereditary obligations by entering any branch of the govern-
ment service. As the Empire broke up, the caste system
vanished with it. Men hastened to shake oiT all artificial re-
strictions and to choose wives and professions for themselves.
But on the current theory, that community of function is the
sole causative principle of caste, that is the last thing that they
ought to have done. They should have hugged their chains
and proceeded to manufacture new castes or sub-castes to fit
every new occupation that sprung up. If the principle had
been worth anything, it should have operated in Europe as
effectually as it does in India. No one can say that the
Theodosian Code had not given it a good start.
But, it will be asked, if the origin of caste is not to be
found in the trade guild, may we not seek
d^velopedSs^ it m the more primitive institution of the
tribe ? Early society, as far back as we can
trace it, is made up of a network of tribes, and in India it is
easy to observe the process of the conversion of a tribe into a
caste. The conjecture seems at first sight plausible ; but a
glance at the facts will show that the transformation in question
is confined to those tribes which have been brought into contact
with the regular caste system, and have adopted its charac-
teristic usages from religious or social motives. The Manipuris,
for example, were converted- from Nagas into Hindus only a
century or two ago ; and I am informed that the family archives
of the Raja contain an account of the process by which the
change was effected. The Bhiimij, again, were a tribe at a
still more recent date, and retain plentiful traces of their origin.
On the other hand, the races of Baluchistan, where Hindu
influence is practically non-existent, show no inclination to
follow the example of the Indian Muhammadans and organize
themselves on the model of caste. The primitive tribe, in fact,
wherever we find it, is not usually endogamous, and, so far from
having any distaste for alien marriages, makes a regular business
of capturing wives. This practice has given rise to one of the
forms of infanticide and may well have been the cause of the
extinction of whole tribes in the early struggle for existence.
In short, when tribes are left to themselves, they exhibit no
THE ORIGIN OF CASTE 273
inborn tendency to crystallize into castes. In Europe, indeed,
the movement has been all in the opposite direction. The
tribes consolidated into nations ; they did not sink into the
political impotence of caste.
As I have said above, speculation concerning the origin of
things is mostly vanity. Sooner or later in
the course of our researches into the past "^ the basis^of fact ^ '
we run up against the dead wall of the
unknown, which is often also the unknowable. In the case of
a complex phenomenon such as caste, to the formation of which
a number of subtle tendencies must have contributed, all that
we can hope to do is to disentangle one or two leading ideas
and to show how their operation may have produced the state
of things that actually exists. Following out this line of
thought, it seems possible to distinguish two elements in the
growth of caste sentiment : a basis of fact and a superstructure
of fiction. The former is widespread if not universal ; the latter
is peculiar to India. Whenever in the history of the world one
people has subdued another, whether by active invasion or
by gradual occupation of their territory, the conquerors have
taken the women of the country as concubines or wives, but
have given their own daughters in marriage only among them-
selves. Where the two peoples are of the same race, or at any
rate of the same colour, this initial stage of what we have called
hypergamy soon passes away, and complete amalgamation takes
place. Where, on the other hand, marked distinctions of race
and colour intervene, and especially if the dominant people are
continually recruited by men of their own blood, the course of
evolution runs on different lines. The tendency then is towards
the formation of a class of half-breeds, the result of irregular
unions between men of the higher race and women of the lower,
who marry only among themselves and are to all intents and
purposes a caste. In this literal or physiological sense caste is
not confined to India. It occurs in a pronounced form in the
Southern States of the American Commonwealth, where negroes
intermarry with negroes, and the various mixed races, mulattoes,
quadroons, and octoroons, each have a sharply restricted jus
connubii of their own and are absolutely cut off from legal
unions with white races. Similar phenomena may be observed
among the half-breeds of Canada, Mexico, and South America,
and among the Eurasians of India, who do not intermarry with
natives and only occasionally with pure-bred Europeans. In
each of these cases the facts are well-known. The men of the
R, PI 18
274 PEOPLE OF INDIA
dominant race took to themselves women of the subject race,
and the offspring of these marriages intermarried for the most
part only among themselves. The Eurasians of Ceylon, who
are known locally as " Burghers," are a notable example of the
formation of a caste in the manner here described. During the
Dutch occupation of Ceylon (1656 — 1795) very few Dutch
women settled in the island. This fact, combined with the
tremendous penalties imposed by the puritanical Dutch laws
on the sin of fornication, induced many of the colonists to
marry Cingalese women of the higher castes. The descendants
of these marriages ranked as Dutch citizens, and very soon
crystallized into a caste, disdaining further alliances with the
natives and marrying only among themselves. Conscious of
their legitimate parentage and proud of a title which recalls
their Dutch ancestry, the Burghers of Ceylon now form a
distinct and independent class, standing apart from both
Europeans and natives, and holding a position far superior to
that of the Eurasians in India. Illustrations of the same process
may be observed in the Himalayas, where, if anywhere in India,
the practices recorded with exaggerated precision in the Indian
law books still survive. The Dogras of the Kangra Hills
and the Khas of Nepal are believed to be the offspring of
alliances between conquering Rajputs and women of more or
less Mongoloid descent. In the case of Nepal, Hodgson has
described at length the conditions of these unions, which
correspond in principle with those of the traditional system of
Manu. Working from this analogy it is not difficult to construct
the rough outlines of the process which must have taken place
when the second wave of Indo- Aryans first made their way into
India through Gilgit and Chitral. At starting they formed a
homogeneous community, scantily supplied with women,
which speedily outgrew its original habitat. A company of the
more adventurous spirits set out to conquer for themselves
new domains among the neighbouring Dravidians. They went
forth as fighting men, taking with them few women or none at
all. They subdued the inferior race, established themselves as
conquerors, and captured women according to their needs.
Then they found themselves cut off from their original stock,
partly by the distance and partly by the alliances they had con-
tracted. By marrying the captured women they had, to some
extent, modified their original type ; but a certain pride of blood
remained to them, and when they had bred females enough to
serve their purposes and to establish a distinct/Ms connubii, they
THE ORIGIN OF CASTE 275
closed their ranks to all further intermixture of blood. When
they did this, they became a caste like the castes of the present
day. As their numbers grew, their cadets again sailed forth in
the same way, and became the founders of the Rajput and
pseudo-Rajput houses all over India. In each case complete
amalgamation with the inferior race was averted by the fact
that the invaders only took women and did not give them.
They behaved, in fact, towards the Dravidians whom they
conquered in exactly the same way as some planters in America
behaved to the African slaves whom they imported. This is a
rough statement of what may be taken to be the ultimate basis
of caste, a basis of fact common to India and to certain stages
of society all over the world. The principle upon which the
system rests is the sense of distinctions of race indicated by
differences of colour : a sense which, while too weak to
preclude the men of the dominant race from intercourse with
the women whom they have captured, is still strong enough to
make it out of the question that they should admit the men
whom they have conquered to equal rights in the matter of
marriage.
Once started in India, the principle was strengthened,
perpetuated, and extended to all ranks of ^^^ genesis of
society by the fiction that people who speak caste: the influence
a different language, dwell in a different offictioii-
district, worship different gods, eat different food, observe
different social customs, follow a different profession, or practise
the same profession in a slightly different way must be so
unmistakably aliens by blood that intermarriage with them is a
thing not to be thought of Illustrations of the working of
this fiction have been given above in the description of the
various types of caste and might be multiplied indefinitely. Its
precise origin is necessarily uncertain. AH that can be said is
that fictions of various kinds have contributed largely to the
development of early societies in all parts of the world, and
that their appearance is probably due to that tendency to vary,
and to perpetuate beneficial variations, which seems to be a
law of social no less than of physical development. However
this may be, it is clear that the growth of the caste instinct
must have been greatly promoted and stimulated by certain
characteristic peculiarities of the Indian intellect — its lax hold
of facts, its indifference to action, its absorption in dreams,
its exaggerated reverence for tradition, its passion for endless
division and sub-division, its acute sense of minute technical
276 PEOPLE OF INDIA
distinctions, its pedantic tendency to press a principle to its
furthest logical conclusion, and its remarkable capacity for
imitating and adapting social ideas and usages of whatever
origin. It is through this imitative faculty that the myth of
the four castes — evolved in the first instance by some specula-
tive Brahman, and reproduced in the popular versions of the
epics which the educated Hindu villager studies as diligently
as the English rustic used to read his Bible — has attained its
wide currency as the model to which Hindu society ought to
conform. -That it bears no relation to the actual facts of life is,
in the view of its adherents, an irrelevant detail. It descends
from remote antiquity ; it has the sanction of the Brahmans ; it
is an article of faith ; and every one seeks to bring his own
caste within one or other of the traditional classes. Finally,
as M. Senart has pointed out, the whole caste system, with its
scale of social merit and demerit and its endless gradations of
status, is in remarkable accord with the philosophic doctrine
of transmigration and karma. Every Hindu believes that his
spiritual status at any given time is determined by the sum
total of his past lives : he is born to an immutable karma, what
is more natural than that he should be born into an equally
immutable caste?
-The ethnological conclusions which the
loregomg chapters seek to establish may
now be summed up. They are these : —
(i) There are seven main physical types in India, of which
the Dravidian alone is, or may be, indigenous. The Indo-
Aryan, the Mongoloid, and the Turko-Iranian, types are in the
main of foreign origin. The Aryo-Dravidian, the Mongolo-
Dravidian, and the Scytho-Dravidian are composite types
formed by crossing with the Dravidians.
(2) The dominant influence in the formation of these types
was the physical seclusion of India, involving the consequence
that the various invaders brought few women with them and
took the women of the country to wife.
(3) To this rule the first wave of Indo-Aryans formed the
sole exception, for the reasons given on pages 49—55.
(4) The social grouping of the Indian people comprises both
tribes and castes. We may distinguish three types of tribe
and seven types of caste.
(5) Both tribes and castes are sub-divided into endogamous,
exogamous, and hypergamous groups.
(6) Of the exogamous groups a large number are totemistic.
THE ORIGIN OF CASTE 277
It is suggested that both totemism and exogamy are traceable
to the general law of natural selection.
(7) Castes can be classified only on the basis of social
precedence, but no scheme of classification can be framed for
the whole of India.
(8) The Indian theory of caste was perhaps derived from
Persia. It has no foundation in fact, but is universally accepted
in India.
(9) The origin of caste is from the nature of the case an
insoluble problem. We can only frame more or less plausible
conjectures, derived from the analogy of observed facts. The
particular conjecture now put forward is based — firstly, upon
the correspondence that can be traced between certain caste
gradations and certain variations of physical type ; secondly,
on the development of mixed races from stocks of difi"erent
colour ; and thirdly, on the influence of fiction.
CHAPTER VII
CASTE AND NATIONALITY
Rien n'est b8te que de bouder I'avenir.
Anatole France.
So sindsie Particularisten von Natur : das nationale Bewusstsein erscheintbei
ihnen erst als Erzeugniss der fortschreitenden Bildung.
Von Sybel, 1890.
It will be seen from the picture imperfectly outlined in the
preceding chapters that caste in India is something more than
what is called a social system, something beyond a mere mode
of grouping the loose atoms of humanity which the wheel of
circumstance has created and a turn of the same wheel may
destroy or transform. We should rather conceive of it as a
congenital instinct, an all-pervading principle of attraction and
repulsion entering into and shaping every relation of life. For
Hindus caste is bound up with their religion, and its observance
is enforced by the authority of the priests ; its influence is
conspicuous in the social usages of most Indian Muhammadans ;
and it extends even to the relatively small communities of
Christians. Thus it forms the cement that holds together the
myriad units of Indian society. In the words of Sir K.
Sheshadri Iyer, the great Dewan of Mysore,
SKeilTngup. " the Whole social fabric of India rests upon
caste." Were its cohesive power with-
drawn or its essential ties relaxed, it is difficult to form any
idea of the probable consequences. Such a change would be
more than a revolution ; it would resemble the withdrawal of
some elemental force like gravitation or molecular attraction.
Order would vanish and chaos would supervene. Yet we are
told from time to time, in tones of settled conviction, that the
bonds of caste are being burst asunder by the disruptive force
of modern ideas and that the Indian spirit is now about to be
liberated from this prison-house of the past Such facile
CASTE AND NATIONALITY 279
assurances proceed for the most part from philanthropic
Englishmen who have seen little of India beyond the Presidency
towns, who know none of the vernacular languages, and who
derive their impressions from the small body of Anglicized
Indians whom Sir Henry Cotton describes, with rather needless
acidity, in one place as "a disorganised class within the
community," and in another as "an artificial and exotic
product." *
Let it be admitted, however, that there is some excuse for
those who, in their just and natural admiration for the edu-
cated Indian, leave out of view the people of India and the
governing principle of Indian society — caste. Any one who has
the curiosity to glance at the second chapter of this book
will see that from the sixteenth century onwards almost all
observers have been struck by the prohibitions on food and
drink, and the rules about personal contact which caste entails,
and have hardly noticed its restrictions upon marriage. Both
sets of rules are, of course, inherent in the system. But they
do not stand upon the same footing, and the penalties attached
to their violation differ widely. A marriage, or even a liaison,
with a member of another caste ipso facto
involves final and irremediable excommuni- ^"XtionroffaeT'
cation. A slip in the matter of food can
within limits be expiated by penance. Moreover, the rules
about diet and contact with other castes rest upon a meta-
physical theory of ceremonial pollution which admits of many
exceptions. Ever since the time of Manu it has been recog-
nized that the devout traveller, when in danger of starvation,
must pocket his caste scruples and satisfy his hunger as best
he can. In modern times, and especially since the introduction
of railways, this comfortable doctrine has been developed and
elaborated by Brahmanical casuistry. It has long been held,
for example, that sweetmeats, a generic and elastic term which
includes all the promiscuous messes sold on the railway plat-
forms, may be taken from almost anybody. Nice enquiries
about the caste of itinerant vendors of sweetstuflf cannot be
prosecuted from the window of a third-class carriage during a
short stoppage, and a modern proverb sums up the position in
the practical query — " You have eaten the food he gave you,
why ask about his caste?" On the same principle the wise
man finds it convenient to forget that ice was once water, that
* New India, p. 260.
28o PEOPLE OF INDIA
soda water, before it found its way into a cunningly contrived
bottle, owned the same humble origin and did not necessarily
come straight from the Ganges; that certain essences and
extracts used for medical purposes bear an ascertainable rela-
tion to beef, and that imported biscuits must have passed in
their making through the hands of all sorts of casteless folk.
Nor is he so indiscreet as to enquire at how many paces'flis-
tance his neighbour can convey pollution, when he must in any
case rub shoulders with him in a railway carriage for twelve
hours on end.
The every-day occurrences which an observant tourist may
notice in the course of his cold-weather progress through India
manifestly conflict with his preconceived notion of caste as a
rigid system of unalterable prohibitions. To people who do
not understand all that is implied in the cry of Pdni Pdnre,
which one hears at each halt of a train in Northern India, the
apparent difference between the theory of the guide-book and
the practice of the people may well seem marked enough to
warrant the belief that English education, modern civilization,
the growth of industries, the march of progress, and all the
rest of it are making short work of an ancient and famous
institution for which the Indian world has no longer any use.
Yet what the tourist sees from his railway carriage comprises
only the accidents of caste, which may change from year to
year as convenience or fashion may dictate. The substance of
the system lies hidden from the eye of the globe-trotter (and
scarcely perceptible even to those who are not globe-trotters)
in the hard and fast rules which regulate marriage. In this
department of life, where the fact or fiction of community of
blood has continually to be reckoned with, there are no signs
of compromise or concession. People must marry within the
caste or sub-caste in which they were born, or must take the
consequences. Even the most advanced of modern Indians
have had occasion to discover that exclusive dealing in hus-
bands is a formidable weapon to use against a family man, and
that the frivolous foreigner who defined caste as "a turnpike to
matrimony " had, at any rate, hit off an aspect of it which comes
home to the father of marriageable daughters. As for the mass
of the people, all that they know or care to know is that who-
ever kicks over the connubial traces is promptly turned out of
his caste, and must either become a Muhammadan or must join
some dubious sect which offers a sympathetic welcome to
persons caught out in sexual delinquencies. The idea that any
CASTE AND NATIONALITY 281
properly constituted Hindu should wish to marry outside his
caste would seem to them too preposterous to be worth dis-
cussing. As long as the people think thus, so long will caste
endure, whatever philanthropists may say.
Quite apart, moreover, from caste developments many
things are happening in the India of to-day which tend to
bev#lder an observer recently arrived from Europe, and unable
to command a wider outlook than is afforded by his own imme-
diate surroundings. It is hardly possible to imagine a more
startling series of contrasts than is disclosed directly one pene-
trates below the mere surface of Indian society. One sees
-there a sort of disordered kaleidoscope in which the oldest and
the newest ideas of the human spirit whirl round together in
the most bewildering fashion. Science and religion, expedi-
ency and prescription, contract and status, the Western enthu-
siasm of humanity, the Eastern carelessness of human life —
all these mighty opposites are mixed and jumbled up together
in a fantastic medley out of which a benevolent despotism,
controlled in the last resort by a distant but not unwise
democracy, is constantly attempting to evolve an order oi
things which, while satisfying the comparatively simple wants
of oriental life, shall not fall too conspicuously short of Euro-
pean ideals of progress and prosperity. An illustration or two
will show at a glance how great a gulf is fixed between the
educated minority and the great body of the Indian people, and
what savage impulses throb behind the deceptive veil of appa-
rent culture. Not very long ago, while a talented Bengali
professor, well known to the scientific world of London, was
lecturing to crowded audiences on the transcendental proper-
ties of metals under the influence of electricity, widows were
being burnt alive in Bihar, incidents curiously suggestive of
human sacrifice were occurring in Orissa, and in Calcutta, the
soi-disant centre of light and leading, a large section of the
population, shrewd enough in the business of daily life, were
deterred from going out after dark by their dread of a mys-
terious personage who was believed to be hunting for heads to
cement the foundations of the Victoria Memorial Hall. In the
face of such vigorous survivals of ideas far more primitive than
caste itself, we may be excused for receiving with some scepti-
cism the argument that because a few archaic taboos on food,
drink, and personal contact have been relaxed, therefore the
entire fabric of caste, undermined by European science, must
be tottering to its fall.
282 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Sir Henry Cotton takes a more just view of the general
situation when he writes : —
" The country recoils from such a social revolution as our Western civilisation has thrust
upon it. It still needs the hierarchical leadership of caste. The tendency to reduce the
power of the dominant classes and to destroy, if possible, all distinction between the different
strata of society is much in vogue among headstrong administrators, who are too apt to
transplant the radical associations of our democracy into a country altogether unsuited to
their growth. But there is no more patrician milieu in the world than that which has for
centuries flourished in India and is still vigorous, in spite of attacks upon it."
" Those reformers who are in the habit of describing caste as the root of all evils in
TCT . , , , „. Hindu society overlook the impossibility of uprooting an
Not shared by Sir .,.;.. . • . , ,, ■ c l u \x. i
Henrv Cotton institution which has taken such a firm hold on the popular
mind. They forget that the attempt to abolish caste, if suc-
cessful, would be attended with the most dangerous consequences, unless some powerful
religious influence were brought to bear upon the people in its place. They forget also that"
caste is still stronger as a social than as a religious institution, and that many a man who has
entirely lost his belief in his religion, is zealous and tenacious of his position as a high-caste
man, and scrupulously performs all customary rites and ceremonies. Caste is now the frame-
work which knits together Hindu society ; it is the link which maintains the existing religious
system of Hinduism in its present order. The problem of the future is not to destroy caste,
but to modify it, to preserve its distinctive conceptions, and to gradually place them upon a
social instead of a supernatural basis." *
The late Babu Guru Prasad Sen, a native of Eastern Bengal,
who practised as a pleader in Patna, and wrote an instructive
little book on Hindu social life, lays equal stress on the neces-
sity of retaining caste unless Indian society is to fall utterly to
pieces. He dwells upon its value as the guardian of a proper
espnt de corps among the groups to which it gives rise, and
notices the wholesome influence which it exercises by maintain-
ing unbroken the traditions of remote ancestry ; by preserving
the distinct existence of the Hindu people ; and by enforcing
the due subordination of the various parts of society to the
whole.
The opinion held by Sir Henry Cotton and Babu ,Guru
Prasad Sen that caste, so far from being moribund, still main-
tains its ancient place in the Indian social system, receives
striking confirmation from the returns of the last Census. It
may be said with confidence that the tendency to rebel against
the prescriptions of caste has not spread beyond the relatively
small circle of those who, in Mr. Gokhale's words, " have come
under the influence of some kind of English education." t Out-
side those limits caste, with all its restrictions, is regarded as
the natural law governing human society. Now the male
adults who described themselves in the Census of 1901 as being
* New India, pp. 225 and 252.
t Presidential address to National Indian Congress, 1905.
CASTE AND NATIONALITY 283
able to read and write English— a test not necessarily represent-
ing a high standard of English education— numbered in the
whole of India just 707,000, or less than one per cent, of the
male adult population.* Even if the whole of this company of
literati, scattered over all the provinces and _, . „„ „„„
' "^ Whose vi&wa are
states of India, were banded together to confirmed by statis-
beleaguer the citadel of caste, many genera- tics and by the best
i. ^. c .1 ■ ,.. 1 ij Indian opinion,
tions must pass before their attack could
effect a practicable breach. The walls of immemorial usage
will not crumble at the first blast of the trumpet of reform.
But how many even of the advanced members of the literate
class seriously contemplate the disruption of the social regime
under which they live ? So far as can be gathered from the
various sources of information available, the number of such
iconoclasts is extremely small, while their ranks are mainly
recruited from among those who, for one reason or another,
have become alienated from their own people and have lost
touch with Indian society. Nor does English education of
itself, at any rate in its present state of de,velopment, necessarily
incline an Indian patriot to enter upon the uncongenial task of
demolishing indigenous institutions and reconstructing them
on a foreign model. On the contrary, with the growth of
national or provincial self-consciousness which has manifested
itself within the last few years, the opposite tendency may be
observed, and Indian religion, philosophy, usage, and family
life are extolled as intrinsically superior to anything that the
Western World has succeeded in producing.
If then the regime of cast, with all that it implies, is likely
to survive for an indefinite period in India, what influence may
it be expected to have over the growth of the modern, idea of
an Indian nationality ? At first sight the two things appear to
be antagonistic and incompatible : the principle of separation
conflicts with the principle of consolidation. This, indeed,
seems to be the deliberate opinion of two competent Indian
critics. The disordered state of things arising from particular-
ism in India was vividly described a few months ago by an
advanced Bengali politician in a letter to a Calcutta newspaper :
" We must not forget that India is not yet a nation ; we must
not forget that it is a congeries of races, which are not always
friendly to each other : we must not forget the ancient hate, the
[* In the whole of India in 191 1, 17 million persons were found to be literate in English.
Of every ten thousand persons of each sex, ninety-five males and ten females possessed this
knowledge (Census of India Report, 191 1, vol. i., p. 299).]
284 PEOPLE OF INDIA
ancient prejudice, the ancient clashing of castes and creeds
which still hold India under their vice-like grip." * A serious
student of social problems in India, who stands aloof from
politics, and approaches the subject of reform from the firmer
Apparent antago- ground of religion and philosophy, writes
nism of Caste and in an equally despondent tone. After refer-
Nationality. ^.^^^ ^^ ^^^ j^j^j^ j^^^jg ^f p^^^jj^, ^^^ private
life that prevailed in ancient India, he goes on to say : — " Truth
(satya) and duty (dharma), the good old rule of not doing to
others what was disagreeable to one's own self, was held up as
the ideal by the sages of those times, and many tried to live it.
And it is because we have lost that ideal, that we present the
spectacle of a people rent asunder by mutual dissensions,
divided into thousands of castes and sub-castes, sects and sub-
sects, with all spirit of nationality crushed out, weak in body
and mind and slaves of circumstances." t Yet clearly Sir Henry
Cotton and Babu Guru Prasad Sen do not regard the matter in
the same light as the most recent observers on the spot. For
both of them look forward with enthusiasm to the birth of
an Indian nation ; and the latter, while asserting with some
emphasis that " there was no Indian nation at the date of
Vikramaditya, or at any period of past Indian history," goes
on to quote with approval Comte's reference to caste as "a
necessary preparation " for the wider sentiment of patriotism.
Sir Henry Cotton t dips even further into the future, and does
not hesitate to sketch, in terms which recall the seventh book
of the Mahabharata, the main outlines of the political organiza-
tion in which the national spirit will find its appropriate
embodiment and expression. "What is required," he says, "in
the absence of an emasculating foreign army, is an organization
of small States, each with a prince at its head, and a small body
of patrician aristocracy interposing between him and the lower
orders of working-men. For such an arrangement the country
appears to be eminently adapted; the United States of India
should be bound together by means of some political organiza-
tion other than the colonial supremacy of England. The basis
of internal order is to be found in the recognition of a patriciate
accustomed by hereditary associations to control and lead," —
in other words a Council of Nobles.
* Hon. Babu Bhupendra Nath Basu of the Bengal Legislative Council. — Statesman, 28th
May, 1907.
t Hinduism : Ancient and Modern, by Rai Bahadur Lala Baij Nath, b.a., District and
Sessions Judge, Ghazipur. New edition, 1905, p. 104,
X New India, p. 227.
CASTE AND NATIONALITY 285
In an interesting essay in the Empire Review for September,
1907, Mr. A. M. T. Jackson has shown how the theory of the
traditional Hindu Kingship — the political ideal which the genius
of the warrior Sivaji sought to revive and which the intriguing
spirit of the Brahman Peshwas effectually shattered — was rooted
in caste. At the head of it stands the King, the one absolute
and responsible ruler, uniting in his own person all legislative,
judicial, and executive functions, but assisted in their exercise
by a purely advisory Council consisting of members appointed
by himself in certain proportions from among the leading
castes. Subject to the orders of the King,
, t ^ ■. ■ . r ,1 1 r .1 Caste and Monarchy,
whose duty it is to enforce the rules of the
various castes, "each of the functions required in a civilised
community is discharged by a separate section of the people.
The worship of the gods is the business of one caste, banking
of another, shoe-making of another, and so on. By analogy the
business of government is also assigned to one particular
section, instead of being the common business of all as it is
usually held to be in Europe. In India, this arrangement
reacted upon the body politic in two ways. Firstly, the exclu-
sion of most of the castes from politics left little room for the
growth of feelings of common interest and public spirit ;
secondly, the efficiency of the governing section became of
immense importance. Only if this section were strong could
it perform its function of keeping each caste to its proper
duties, and thereby combine the parts into an organic whole ;
while if it were weak, society would fall apart into disconnected
atoms. Anarchy is the peculiar peril of a society that is
organized on the basis of caste, and the dread of anarchy leads
to monarchy as the strongest defence against it. Indian thinkers
were well aware of the weakness of divided counsels, holding
that one person should be appointed to one task, and not two
or three. ' It is always seen that several persons, if set to one
task, disagree with one another.' "*
Under the rule of the model King depicted in the Mahabha-
rata, of whom it is written that " he should always have the rod
of chastisement uplifted in his hands," the forces of caste were
kept under proper control, and the system was prevented from
degenerating into an organized tyranny. Monarchy seems to
have guarded against this danger ; would a democracy of the
modern type be able to do the same? In considering how
* M(thcibMrata VII., p. 258.
286 PEOPLE OF INDIA
such a democracy would work in India, it must not be for-
gotten that caste would provide the party in
Caste and demoeraoy. ,, , .1 , i i -i , t- • 1
power, the party that had spoils to divide,
with what Americans call a "machine " surpassing in efficiency
the wildest dream of the most ingenious wire-puller. It already
possesses a ready-made system of standing caucuses each
under the control of a " boss " or a committee of " bosses."
Once organized for political purposes, it could whip up voters
en masse and could secure the adoption of any conceivable
ticket. Men would be compelled to vote solid by penalties
compared with which the Papal interdict that drove an
Emperor barefoot to Canossa was a clumsy and ineffectual
instrument. In a society where every, one is peculiarly
dependent on his neighbours, the recalcitrant voter would
speedily find himself cut off not merely from the amenities, but
also from the barest necessaries of life. No one would eat
with him, drink with him, smoke with him, or sell him food ;
the barber would not shave him ; the washerman would decline
to wash his clothes ; the Brahman would deny him the offices
of religion; no man would marry his daughter; and the
attendants of the dead would refuse him the accustomed
funeral rites. These are some of the blessings which popular
government, controlled and directed by caste organization,
would confer upon the subjects committed to its charge.
Whatever future centuries may have in store for the people of
India it may be hoped that they will be spared the misfortune
of government by social ostracism.
The discussion of speculative constitutions is a futile
pursuit. But the relation between caste and nationality,
between the idea of a rigidly exclusive matrimonial group and
the idea, whether realized or not, of a wider community
embracing many such groups — has taken rudimentary shape in
India before now and may yet make itself felt on a larger scale.
If what might have been the germ of a nation can shrink into a
caste, as we have seen in the case of the Marathas and the
Newars, may not the converse process be
Caste andnationality. .,, , , ^ , "^ . ,
possible and a number of castes, without
sacrificing their individual characteristics, draw together into
that larger aggregate which we call a nationality? For the
answer to this question no antecedent experience can be
appealed to, since the institution of caste is peculiar to India,
and the historical causes by which certain Teutonic tribes
(which under different conditions might have hardened into
CASTE AND NATIONALITY 287
castes) were converted into nations can hardly be expected to
repeat themselves here at the present day. It seems of interest,
however, to attempt to determine to what extent the con-
tinuance of caste is in itself favourable or adverse to the growth
of a consciousness of common nationality among the people of
India.
In the first place, let us endeavour to make clear what is
meant by nationality. This abstract term, originally denoting
the fact of belonging to a particular nation (as we speak of the
" nationality " of a ship), has within the last fifty years acquired
a concrete meaning implied rather than expressed in such
phrases as " oppressed nationalities." The standard literature
of the subject approaches the question from the European
standpoint, and the development of the idea of nationality in
Asia has as yet received no exhaustive treatment. As the
word is ordinarily used, it seems to imply that the persons
composing a nationality are keenly conscious, and may even be
passionately convinced, that they are closely bound together
by the tie of common interests and ideals, that in a special and
intimate way they belong to one another, and that the moral
force and enthusiasm by which their senti- The factors of
ment of unity is inspired render it indepen- nationality,
dent of the government or governments under which they may
happen to live. This feeling of self-consciousness gives to a
body of men a sort of personality, so that they become "a moral
unity with a common thought." The idea is not necessarily
associated with democratic tendencies ; it may equally arise
from loyalty to a dynasty. Nor is it invariably directed
towards consolidation ; it can be seen at work as a disintegrat-
ing force which fastens upon a particular racial, linguistic or
geographical group and seeks to detach it from the political
system of which it forms part. When a homogeneous multi-
tude of men, animated by this complex sentiment, are united
under a single government expressing their common aspira-
tions and carried on by themselves, they are no longer
described as a nationality, but are recognized as a nation.
Thus we speak of the Polish, Finnish and Bohemian nation-
alities, and of the Greek, German, and Italian nations. The
factors which go to the making of a national consciousness are
of somewhat indefinite character and have been variously
described. The most precise enumeration of them is perhaps
that given by Sidgwick in The Elements of Politics. He notices
the following : — The belief in a common origin ; the possession
288 PEOPLE OF INDIA
of a common language and literature ; the pride that is felt in
common historic traditions, in the memories of a common
political history, and of common struggles against foreign foes ;
community of religion ; community of social customs. The
last factor is in India so closely associated with religion that it
need not be specially considered.
Belief in a common origin, frequently traced back to a
mythical ancestry, figures largely in the inherited traditions of
most European nations. Into the foundations of such beliefs it
would be unkind to enquire too narrowly : in the nebulous
domain of national sentiment a picturesque legend carries
higher value than the most authentic historical documents. If
people can succeed in persuading themselves that they come of
Community of the same stock, they will not thank any one
origin. for showing that their descent is extremely
mixed, and that pure races exist only in theory. It may
perhaps be argued that in these respects the general position
in India is not altogether dissimilar to that in Europe, and that
the diffusion of patriotic fiction may in either case be expected
to bring about much the same result. But in India we have to
reckon with the existence of a number of distinct physical
types, the contrasts between which strike the most superficial
observer; and these types not only occupy widely different
stages of intellectual advancement and general culture, but are
organized in a social system which tends to stereotype and
perpetuate their hereditary or acquired characteristics. Can
we look forward to a time when these antagonistic masses will
be animated by the conviction of their common origin, and will
sink their natural antipathies in the idea of a united nationality?
Can we suppose, for example, that the Muhammadans will
readily surrender their cherished tradition of descent from
Arab and Moghul conquerors, that the Rajputs will claim kin-
ship with the Bengalis, or that the millions of Dravidian and
Mongoloid people will be recognized as owning the same
parentage as the Brahmans of Benares and Ajodhya? No
student of ethnology will ignore the influence that has been
exercised by fiction in forging imaginary affinities between
people of very different origin, but in India this influence has
hitherto been directed towards separation rather than con-
solidation, and even when that tendency has been reversed, an
immense amount of leeway will still have to be made up.
There are at present ho indications that the factor of
language, which has done so much to promote national move-
CASTE AND NATIONALITY 289
ments in Europe, is likely to play the same part in India. At
the last Census of the Empire no less than
147 distinct languages were recorded, 22 of
which were spoken by more than a million people.* The
situation, therefore, so far as language is concerned, is even
more complex and chaotic than it is in the Austrian dominions,
where the Parliamentary oath may have to be administered in
eight different languages. . It is perhaps conceivable that one
of the many dialects of Hindustani might in course of time
become established as the vernacular of the whole of Northern
India, though the linguistic jealousies of Hindus and Muham-
madans as to the script and vocabulary of the language will not
readily be appeased. But to suppose that the Dravidians of
Southern India will ever abandon Tamil and Telugu in favour
of some form of Indo-Aryan speech, or that the peasantry of
Bengal and Orissa, Maharashtra and Gujarat will change their
characteristic languages and alphabets, requires almost as large
an effort of the imagination as the dream that English itself
may in the remote future become the lingua franca of the three
hundred millions who inhabit the Indian Empire. Speculations
of this kind pay but a sorry tribute to the vitality of the Indian
vernaculars and the attractions of the valuable literature which
they possess — a literature which appeals to the rnost intimate
feelings of the people and is closely bound up with their
religious beliefs and their social obligations. The day is far
distant when the Ramayana of Tulsi Das will lose its hold
over the peasantry of Upper India; and when the hymns of
Tukaram will cease to be household words in the Maratha
country. Nor do the classical languages of India supply a
bond of union which may form the basis of a common nation-
ality. The tendencies of Sanskrit writings are hierarchical
rather than national, while their contemplative and meta-
physical tendencies are absolutely at variance with the actively
militant spirit of the Arabic and Persian classics on which
Indian Muhammadans are brought up. It is difficult to imagine
any form of symbolical interpretation or intellectual com-
promise by which the quietist philosophy characteristic of the
Hindu scriptures could be reconciled with the fiery dogmatism
of the Koran, or to conceive how two races looking back to
such widely different literatures could be brought to regard
them as the common heritage of one united nationality. We
[* In 191 1 220 languages (including 38 minor dialects) spoken by 313 millions, were
recorded (Cefisiis of India Report, 1911, vol. i., p. 321).]
R, PI 19
290 PEOPLE OF INDIA
can only conclude therefore that in India, so far as can be at
present foreseen, the development of the national idea is not
likely to derive much support from popular speech or learned
tradition.
It is possible indeed— distant as the prospect now appears
— that English may after all stand the best chance of becoming
the national language of India. Its adoption would at any
rate avoid the antipathies and antagonisms with which any
Indian vernacular would have to contend. English is already
the medium of communication for the upper classes, at any
rate on certain subjects, all over India. As the men of the
elder generation, who prefer the vernacular, die off, and
English comes to be the language of the family as well as
the language of public life, it may spread in Northern India
as it has spread in the south and may extend to classes which
are not now touched by it. This process would be greatly
expedited, and at the same time the development of nationality
promoted, if the modern " direct " method of teaching were
introduced and colloquial English were taught to British
Indian children as thoroughly as colloquial French is taught
in Pondicherry and Chandernagore. There would then be
less temptation to mix the two languages, taking the structure
of the sentence from one and the vocabulary from the other.
This, I believe, is more common in Upper India than in
Madras. When such expressions as " dpndr theatricals bcro
tedious hbbe^' can be heard in the best Indian society, one feels'
that those who use them are hardly on the right road to a real
command of either language.
We may look back in vain through India's stormy past for
memories of a common political history and common struggles
against foreign foes. Wave after wave of conquest or armed
occupation has swept over the face of the country, but at no
time were the invaders confronted with resistance organized
on a national basis or inspired by patriotic enthusiasm. If here
and there a local chieftain fought for independence, as Porus
opposed Alexander and Prithiraj resisted Muhammad Ghori,
his nearest rivals hastened to offer their swords to the foreign
enemy. Tribal jealousies, dynastic intrigues, internal disunion
. , , . ^ combined to create a political vacuum which
Political history. .1 r- . , , , ■ . ,
the nrst comer who knew his own mind
was irresistibly impelled to fill. Even the Maratha confederacy,
which to some may have seemed stable enough to form the
nucleus of a national dominion, was broken up by the personal
CASTE AND NATIONALITY 291
disputes which arose among its leaders. The Sikh league, held
together for a time by the masterful personality of Ranjit
Singh, began to fall to pieces at his death. Illustrations might
be multiplied without limit, but it is an unwelcome task to
dwell upon a picture of general discord and confusion. The
facts are beyond dispute, and they point to the inevitable
conclusion that national sentiment in India can derive no
encouragement from the study of Indian history.
In the series of lectures published under the title, " The
Expansion of England," the late Sir John Seeley speaks of
religion as "the strongest and most important of the elements
which go to constitute nationality," and throws out the idea
that Hinduism may prove to be the germ from which that
sentiment may be developed in India. He then draws attention
to the failure of the Hindus to organize a national resistance
to the advance of the Muhammadan invaders, and of the
Maratha confederacy, which he describes as " an organization
of plunder," to inspire Hinduism with the spirit of active
patriotism. There he leaves the subject, after a passing glance
at the "facile comprehensiveness of Hindu- -ay-
ism " which in his judgment " has enfeebled
it as a uniting principle," and rendered it incapable of generating
true national feeling. It may be admitted that the flame of
patriotic enthusiasm will not readily arise from the cold grey
ashes of philosophic compromise, and that before Hinduism
can inspire an active sentiment of nationality, it will have to
undergo a good deal of stiffening and consolidation. Th^e Arya
Samaj seems to be striking out a path which may lead in this
direction, but the tangled jungle of Hinduism bristles with
obstacles, and the way is long. Meanwhile, it is curious to
observe that Sir John Seeley's forecast leaves Islam entirely
out of account, though in an earlier lecture he dwells on the
fact that the population of India is "divided between Brahman-
ism and Muhammadanism." His general proposition as to
the influence of religion upon nationality seems, moreover, to
lose sight of the historical fact that while community of
religion strengthens and consolidates national sentiment, reli-
gious differences create distinct types within a nation and
tend to perpetuate separate and antagonistic interests. This
difficulty has not escaped the observation of Sir Henry Cotton,
who rightly points out that " it is impossible to be blind to the
general character of the relations between Hindus and Muham-
madans ; to the jealousy which exists and manifests itself so
292 PEOPLE OF INDIA
frequently, even under British rule, in local outbursts of
popular fanaticism; to the kine-killing riots and to the religious
friction which occasionally accompanies the celebration of the
Ram Lila or the Bakr Id or the Muharram." * Sir Theodore
Morisont approaches the question from a different point of
view. Writing of the educated Muhammadans, he says : — " The
possibility of fusion with the Hindus, and the creation by this
fusion of an Indian nationality, does not commend itself to
Muhammadan sentiment. The idea has been brought forward
only to be flouted ; the pride of Muhammadans revolts at such
a sacrifice of their individuality." But in the same article he
seems to admit the possibility of the conception of territorial
nationality, irrespective of race or creed, taking hold of the
Indian Muhammadans and bringing them into the same political
fold with the Hindus. In the case of the most advanced
Muhammadans such a rapprochement is perhaps conceivable.
' But even with them it will take a long time to effect, and great
changes of religious feeling and practice will have to take
place before they can induce the main body of their co-
religionists to follow their lead. The problem is a difficult
one. As long as Muhammadans are accustomed to kill for
food or sacrifice the animal deemed sacred by the Hindus,
occasions for deadly strife are bound to arise when the passion
of religious animosity will overpower the weaker sentiment
of common nationality.
It will be observed that the right of free intermarriage, the
jus connubii which played so large a part in the growth and
progress of the Roman Empire, finds no place in Sidgwick's
catalogue of the essential characteristics of nationality. No one
writing in Europe would imagine that people who were
capable of conceiving the idea of national unity had not long
ago passed the stage at which restrictions on intermarriage
could form part of their code of social custom. Yet this, which
may be called the physiological aspect of
Intermarriage. , . . /^ir.° -^^i^
the question, is one of the first points that
strike an observer in India. It was referred to, as long ago as
1889, by Sir Comer Petheram, Chief Justice of Bengal, in an
address delivered by him as Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta
University : —
" Above all," lie said, " it should be borne in mind by those who aspire to lead the people
of this country into the untried regions of political life, that all the recognized nations
of the world have been produced by the freest possible intermingling and fusing of the
* New India, p. 228. t Quarterly Review:, April 1906.
CASTE AND NATIONALITY 293
different race stocks inhabiting a common territory. The liorde, the tribe, the caste, the
clan, all the smaller separate and often warring groups characteristic of the earlier stages of
civilization, must, it would seem, be welded together by a process of unrestricted crossing
before a nation can be produced. Can we suppose that Germany woufd ever have arrived
at her present greatness, or would indeed have come to be a nation at all, if the numerous
tribes mentioned by Tacitus, or the three hundred petty princedoms of last century, had been
stereotyped and their social fusion rendered impossible by a system forbidding intermarri^e
between the members of different tribes or the inhabitants of different jurisdictions ? If the
tribe in Germany had, as in India, developed into the caste, would German unity ever have
been heard of ? Everywhere in history we see the same contest going forward between the
earlier, the more barbarous instinct of separation, and the modern civilizing tendency towards
unity, but we can point to no instance where the former principle, the principle of disunion
and isolation, has succeeded in producing anything resembling a nation. History, it may be
said, abounds in surprises, but I do not believe that what has happened nowhei-e else is
likely to happen in India in the present generation."
The view there stated is borne out by Rivier's * observa-
tion.
" Ou nepeut gu^re douter que ce ne soit engrande partie aux melanges infinis qui, durant
des Slides, ont petri et triture les Europeens d'aujourd'hui, qu'est du la suprematie mondiale
actuelle de noire continent."
So long as a regime of caste persists, it is diiftcult to see
how the sentiment of unity and solidarity can penetrate and
inspire all classes of the community, from the highest to the
lowest, in the manner that it has done in Japan where, if true
caste ever existed, restrictions on intermarriage have long ago
disappeared. It may be said on the other hand that the caste
system itself, with its singularly perfect communal organiza-
tion, is a machinery admirably fitted for the diffusion of new
ideas ; that castes may in course of time group themselves into
classes representing the different strata of society ; and that
India may thus attain, by the agency of these indigenous
corporations, the results which have been arrived at elsewhere
through the fusion of individual types. The problem is a novel
one, but so are the conditions which give rise to it, and the
ferment of new ideas acting upon ancient institutions may
bring about a solution the nature of which cannot now be
foreseen.
. We have seen that the factors which in other countries are
regarded as essential to the growth of
national sentiment either do not exist at all '^^^1111^^^'°'
in India, or tend to produce separation
rather than cohesion. We have also observed that the in-
fluence of caste seems at first sight to favour particularist
rather than nationalist tendencies. Are we then to conclude
Rivier : Principes du Droit des Gens.
294 PEOPLE OF INDIA
that the conception of an Indian nationality rests upon no sub-
stantial or even intelligible basis, and may be brushed aside as
a figment of the prolific oriental imagination stimulated by its
recent contact with Western thought? Such a conclusion
would, I think, be premature. Indian national sentiment is,
indeed, at present in rather a fluid condition, but its existence
within a certain section of the community can hardly be denied,
and the causes which have led to its development are plainly
discernible. They may be said to be two in number : —
(i) The consciousness of a certain community of intellectual
pursuits and aspirations, derived from the common study of
the history and literature of England, and from the common
use, for certain special purposes, of the English language in
addition to a provincial vernacular.
(2) The consciousness of being united and drawn together
by living under a single government, by taking part in the
administration of a common system of laws, and by sharing in
the material benefits of a common civilization.
Here one naturally looks for some instance in history of a
genuine nationality arising from the partial adoption of a
foreign language and the partial assimilation of a few foreign
institutions. Within the modern period the search for such a
parallel would be fruitless. The modern theory of nationality
figured prominently among the original doctrines of the French
Revolution, but in the hands of Napoleon it speedily became
an instrument of territorial aggrandisement, and it can hardly
be said to have attained general recognition in Europe before
about 1830. Long before that time all the peoples affected by
it had formed their own languages, had
^*^n Usto^yT"^^ made their own history, and had developed
characteristic institutions to which they were
passionately attached. Even the oppressed nationalities, whom
other powers were trying to absorb, cherished these feelings in
unabated strength. Going back some centuries earlier it may
perhaps be thought that the common use of Latin by the
learned classes of Europe as a medium of communication on
political and literary subjects offers a resemblance to the
common use of English by the educated class in India. But
the survival of Latin as the language of diplomacy, science and
scholarship down to the middle of the i8th century did no more
towards developing any consciousness of common nationality
among Europeans as such than the remotely analogous fact
that under the rule of the Moghuls in India Hindu officials
CASTE AND NATIONALITY 295
were in the habit of addressing their conquerors and of trans-
acting public business in Persian. In neither case did the
practice of the learned give rise to any community of political
sentiment either among them or among the people at large.
If we travel still further back in the history of Europe an
approach to a precedent of the kind we are in
search of seems at first sight to be furnished "^^ ©aS^^^
by the intellectual and social development of
Gaul under Roman rule. In b.c. 38 when Julius Caesar, yield-
ing to the entreaties of the Gauls for aid against the Helvetii,
entered upon the shortest of Roman wars,* he found the country
between the Rhine and the Pyrenees in the possession of about
eighty independent political communities {Civitates). These
were united by no federal tie; they recognized no superior
authority ; they had not risen to the idea of a common country
or a national life ; and their local patriotism was bounded by
their own little territories, and inspired by hatred of their
immediate neighbours. Most of them were in form aristocratic
republics governed by Senates in which the educated classes
had a decided preponderance. But they were torn by internal
factions ever ready to call in a foreign ally, and were in con-
stant danger of being overthrown by any ambitious chief who
was rich enough to gather round himself a small army of
rudely equipped retainers Independent Gaul was a chaos of
disorderly local jealousies aggravated by perpetual war. When
the Romans appeared on the scene, some of the States
hastened to make terms ; others offered a fitful and ineffectual
resistance under leaders whose real object was to set up
tyrannies of their own. With an army consisting mainly of
Gallic levies, drilled and disciplined on the Roman system and
stiffened by a few Italian legions, Caesar subdued the country
in five campaigns, and substituted a single Roman supremacy
for a confused medley of local supremacies. On the establish-
ment of the pax Romana an era of civilization commenced
which resulted in the development of political and religious
unity.
The influence of language was the chief factor in the change.
From the first century onwards all the inscriptions that have
been discovered, whether dedications to the gods, family
epitaphs, or municipal decrees are without exception in Latin.
* Si cuncta bella recenseas nullum breviore spatio quara adversns Gallos confectuin.
Tac. Ann XJ, 24.
296 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Among the common people the ancient Celtic dialect seems
to have survived down to the middle of the third century and
then to have died out so completely that in the fifth century,
when Gaul was converted to Christianity by Latin-speaking
missionaries, no trace of the original language remained.* As
Coulanges observes, when two peoples are in contact, it is not
always the less numerous that gives up its language ; it is
rather the one that has the most need of the other. Here the
need was all on the side of the Gauls. Their own language
was poor and was unable to express the new ideas that came
in with advancing civilization. They had no literature and no
art of their own. They borrowed both from Roman sources
and they founded schools all over Gaul to teach poetry, rhetoric,
mathematics, the entire harmony of studies which the Latins
called humanity. Religion, law, social usage followed in the
same path, and in all departments of life Gallic culture perished
and Latin culture took its place. Yet the result of this process
of assimilation was not to produce an independent Gallic
nationality, but to merge the people of Gaul in the Roman
nation. The Gauls ceased to be Gauls in any but a geo-
graphical sense and became Romans with a Gallic tinge. The
process is a remarkable one, and many of its incidents seem
almost to have repeated themselves in the history of India.
But it throws no direct light on the problems connected with
the idea of an Indian nationality.
It is in no way surprising that the imagination of the Indian
nationalists should have been deeply touched
"^^^ jlpTn.^^ °^ by the rise of Japan, or even that some of
the more ardent spirits among them should
have formed the opinion that if forty years of contact with
European thought could make a nation of the Japanese, more
than a century of similar experience ought to have done the
same for the people of India. Here there seems to be some
misconception of the facts. Japan has many lessons for the
Indians of to-day, but when they begin to study her history
they will assuredly not learn from it that Japanese nationalism
was the work of two generations, or that it owed anything at
all to foreign culture or influence. Centuries before Com-
modore Perry landed in Yokohama the various race elements
out of which the Japanese people have been formed, had been
* Here I follow Coulanges, La Gaule Romaine. Mommsen, in The Provinces of the
Roman Empire, takes a different view of the scanty evidence available.
CASTE AND NATIONALITY 297
crushed together and consolidated by the sternest discipline
that any nation has ever undergone. In all the stages of this
process religion was the dominant influence. Shinto or "The
way of the gods," a form of Animism coloured and idealized by
the belief that the dead are ever present with the living and
take an unseen but active share in the fortunes of their
descendants, lent itself to a social regime of extraordinary
stringency. Under the rule of the dead no man could call his
soul his own. His actions, his words, his demeanour, his
thoughts, his emotions were perpetually watched by a ghostly
company of ancestors, who were grieved at any wrong conduct
and visited it on the family at large. Thus the rights of the
dead came to be enforced by the living, and formed the basis
of a domestic despotism of the most searching kind. Even the
quality of a smile was defined by inviolable convention, and to
smile at a superior so broadly as to show the back teeth was
reckoned as a mortal offence.
The minute regulations promulgated in 681 a.d. by the
Emperor Temmu, and expanded, a thousand years later, by
the great Shogun lyeyasu, afford many illustrations of the
coercion employed. " Every member of a Kumi," * says one of
these, " must carefully watch the conduct of his fellow members.
If any one violates these regulations without due excuse, he is
to be punished; and his Kumi will also be held responsible."
Behind the Kumi was the clan, then came the community,
then the tribe — a hierarchy of groups, ruled by the " Heavenly
Sovereign," the divinely incarnate Mikado, and all working
together to suppress independent personality and to produce
a uniform type of character for the service of the nation. The
ordinances cover every incident of life from marriage to the
material or cut of a dress, or the value of a birthday present to
a child. They lay infinite stress on obedience to parents and
superiors, respect for elders, faithful service to masters, and
friendly feelings towards all members of the community.
Intrigue, party spirit, the formation of cliques, competition for
leadership, appeals to the passions of the ignorant— in short,
all forms of political selfishness are condemned in scathing
terms. The patriot must put aside personal vanity and may
not play for his own hand. Breaches of the rules were
punished by social ostracism, by flogging, by torture, and in
* A Kumi was a group of five or more households under a Kumi-gashira or group-chief
who was responsible for the conduct of the Kumi and of each of its members.
298 PEOPLE OF INDIA
the last resort by banishment for life or for a term of years.
In old Japan the banished man was dead to human society.
Even the outcast classes would not receive him; without
permission he could not become a Buddhist monk ; and the last
resource of selling himself as a slave was withdrawn from him
by the later Shoguns. The religion of loyalty could make no
terms with the rebel or the renegade. It demanded absolute
submission as the first condition of national unity.
The centuries of coercion which the Japanese passed through
produced in them a superb heredity, moulded by discipline and
instinct with loyalty. When the new era opened and the
Mikado resumed his temporal power, he found ready to his
hand a nation that moved like one man, and was inspired
through all its ranks with the single sentiment of devotion to
the country and to the ever-present ancestors of the race.
The world is still wondering at the achievements of the last
fifty years. But these were rendered possible by the training
of the ages that had gone before. Japanese nationalism did
not originate in the theoretical sentiment of a literate class
which may or may not work down to the lower strata of
society. It is rooted in the popular religion and bound up
with the life of the race. To my mind the most striking
among the many evidences of the diffusion of the spirit of
unity in Japan is to be found in the extraordinary secrecy
maintained during the war with Russia. The correspondents
of foreign papers, ready to pay any price for news, saw one
Division after another vanish into space, but no foreigner
could find out where the troops embarked, where they would
land, or what was their ultimate destination. At a time when
the issue of the contest hung upon the command of the sea two
great battleships were lost by misadventure, and the disaster
was concealed until its disclosure could no longer imperil the
national existence. These things were known to thousands,
but the secret was safe, because all classes were inspired by
the passionate enthusiasm and self-devotion which the Shinto
religion has developed into an instinct, so that the low-born
coolie is as fine a patriot as the Samurai of ancient descent.
When India can rise to these heights of discipline and self-
control, India may rival Japan. But those who cherish that
lofty ideal must bear in mind that in the region of evolution
there is no such thing as a short cut.
Having brought the enquiry to this point and having
attempted to show what factors have and what have not
CASTE AND. NATIONALITY 299
contributed to the growth of national sentiment in India, one is
left with the uncomfortable feeling that one
has by no means got to the root of the matter. i^di^anS^nalm.
Analysis has its limits and a people, like an
individual, is something more than a bundle of tendencies. The
mysterious thing called personality, the equally mysterious
thing called National character, has in either case to be reckoned
with. Beneath the manifold diversity of physical and social
type, language, custom and religion which strikes the observer
in India, there can still be discerned, as Mr. Yusuf Ali has
pointed out, a certain " underlying uniformity of life from the
Himalayas to Cape Comorin." There is in fact an Indian cha-
racter, a general Indian personality, which we cannot resolve
into its component elements. How is this character to be
inspired and transfused by that consciousness of common
interests and ideals which is the predominant feature of the
sentiment of nationality? The question admits of being
answered either on idealist or on evolutionary lines — in the
light of Indian theory or of European or Japanese experience.
It may be said on the one hand that the idea of nationality is in
itself nothing more than an impalpable mental attitude, a sub-
jective conviction which may subsist independently of any
objective reality, a fine flower of sentiment, springing from an
unknown germ and nourished on Maya or illusion. But once
planted on Indian soil it may spread far and wide as its seeds
are blown hither and thither by the breath of popular imagina-
tion. We have seen how the legend of the four original castes,
evolved in the active brain of some systematizing pandit, has
filtered downwards, has taken hold of the mind of the people,
and has become almost an article of faith with the general body
of Hindus. No one cares to enquire whether it rests on any
basis of fact, yet it holds its ground, it gains constantly wider
currency, and it undoubtedly does in a way influence practice
in matters of social usage. It is conceivable that the idea of
nationality may run a similar course, that it may possess the
mind of the upper classes and may be diffused thence through
wider circles until it reaches the rank and file of the Indian
people. The process will take time, and even when it is com-
pleted, the result will be wanting in substance and vitality. If
on the other hand we look to the history of Europe, and more
especially to the history of Japan, we shall see that wherever
genuine nationalities have arisen, they have been the product
of character and circumstances — common character and common
300 PEOPLE OF INDIA
experience acting and reacting on each other through a long
period of time. There is no doubt that the common character
exists in India, if only in the rather shadowy and unde-
veloped form in which Mr. Yusuf Ali depicts it. It has still
to undergo the common experience necessary to mould it into
national character. This apprenticeship, if it is to be of any
real effect, must be based upon facts, not upon fancies, and
must extend to the masses of the people. A mere top-dressing
of idealism will not make a nationality. How then are the
people to be reached? Japan supplies the answer — by the
development of indigenous beliefs and institutions. The vast
majority of the people of India are as yet untouched by the
idea of nationality. This cannot be impressed upon them
through their own vernaculars, the influence of which would
make for separatism rather than for unity. Nor can they be
reached through English, at least not for many generations.
But they might be drawn together by the common interests
which would be created by a genuine form of popular self-
government. This should be built up from the bottom on the
basis of two indigenous institutions — the village community
and the village council — the common property of the Aryan
people both in Europe and in India. Reconstruction on these
lines offers the best prospect of realizing the national ideal,
and of controlling the separatist tendencies of caste. It may
be that in the first instance the process will produce not an
Indian nationality, but a number of provincial nationalities.
But history shows this to be the natural course of evolution.
Everywhere particularism has come first, just as crystallisa-
tion takes place by centres, and nationalities have been formed
by the agglomeration of the particularist units into a larger
whole.
Let us now try to draw together the threads of this discus-
sion. The standard elements of nationality either do not exist
in India or make for diversity rather than uniformity. Caste
in particular, an institution peculiar to India, seems at first
sight to be absolutely incompatible with the idea of nationality,
but the history of the Marathas suggests that a caste or a
group of castes might harden into a nation, and that the caste
organization itself might be employed with effect to bring
about such a consummation. The factors of nationality in
India are two — the common use of the English language for
certain purposes and the common employment of Indians in
English administration. At present these factors affect only a
CASTE AND NATIONALITY 301
limited group of persons, among whom the Muhammadans
have hitherto stood rather aloof. The masses have not been
affected at all. They cannot be reached through language, but
they might be reached through the agency of self-governing
institutions. The orderly development of the indigenous
germs of such institutions ought to be the immediate object of
the Indian nationalists. In this direction and, I believe, in this
direction alone, is it possible to advance towards real political
representation. Progress will in any case be slow, but nothing
will retard it more certainly than the " impatient idealism "
which insists upon beginning at the wrong end.
APPENDIXES
APPENDIX I
CASTE IN PROVERBS AND POPULAR SAYINGS
BRAHMAN.
(Priest.)
Before the Brahman is in want the king's larder will be empty. Like the cat in
a Brahman's house (No risk of being killed). The Brahman's house smells sweet
(He burns sandal wood in the sacred fire). Only he is a true Brahman who com-
forts those who come to him for help. Like priest, like people. The riches of
the Brahman are in the Veda ; help him who teaches it (A Brahman's advice).
Will the new moon wait till the Brahman comes ? The Brahman is in a hurry,
the temple must be decorated. Like killing a cow and making shoes for a
Brahman of her hide ! (An unsuitable present.) . He feeds Brahmans, but his
own mother starves. Even an Aiyangar (title of Brahmans) can give you a con-
tagious disease. A Brahman's Tamil and a Vellala's Sanskrit are equally bad.
When the Brahman was at the point of death, his wife wept for his scalp lock.
Leading an ass and feeding a fire. (The allusion is to the tale of a certain king
whose barber could shave him while he slept without waking him. To reward his
skill the king made his priests turn the barber into a Brahman, which was done by
leading him round a sacrificial fire. Next day the king saw his Vizier busily
engaged in leading a donkey round a fire and asked what he was doing. The
Vizier replied that as the priests had made a Brahman out of a barber he was
making a horse out of an ass.) The {iriest will, after all, be obliged to eat the
gram cakes. (Here the Brahman is supposed to be angry with his wife for giving
him gram instead of wheat : at first he refuses his food, but hunger drives him to
eat what is put before him.) What signifies the knowledge of the shastras to him
who fails to practise virtue ? If I say this, it is as bad as killing a Brahman ; if I
say that, it is as bad as killing a cow. Betel nut in the hand of a priest. A girl
must be married at ten even if to a Pariah (A gibe at infant marriage among
Brahmans). A Nagar will always lie ; if he speaks the truth his guru (spiritual
teacher) must have been a fool. You will not get the better of a Nagar ; if you do,
he must be a Hajjam. To get a Nagar wife you must pay a jar full of money.
(The Nagar bride-price is high.) You may see a Nagar bride naked. (She will
bear inspection.)
What is a Brahman ? A thing with a string round its neck. Does the thread
make the Brahman ? A saint, a cook, a water carrier, and an ass ? (Aimed at the
multifarious occupations of the modern Brahmans.) A priest by appearance, a
butcher at heart. There are three blood-suckers (butchers) in this world — the
bug, the flea, and the Brahman. The Brahman and the vulture look out for corpses.
Flaunting a rosary and hiding a knife, you chant the Divine Song, O Brahman,
exhorting others but sinning yourself. A Chaube set out to become a Chhabbe,
R, PI 20
3o6 PEOPLE OF INDIA
but returned a Dube. (Chaube and Dube are Brahman titles denoting in theory
that the holders know four Vedas or two Vedas respectively. The irony of the
saying is directed at the ignorant Brahman who wants to know six Vedas when
there are only four.) What is in the Brahman's book is on the Brahman's tongue.
Bathe in the Ganges and lend to a Brahman. (If you are drowned or lose your
money you get salvation as a set-off.) A Brahman need only prophesy ; a bullock
must plough his furrow. Every Brahman has his own moral code. A Brahman
is damned by his own teaching. Follow a Brahman's precepts, not his practice.
A learned Brahman dies of hunger. A Brahman's wisdom — after the event. One
old woman is worth a hundred Joshis. (Brahman astrologer.) The gods are
false and the Brahmans impure. A Brahman washes his sacred thread, but does
not cleanse his inner man. A Brahman with hair to his waist. (To show his
piety.) Though the Brahman prostrate himself (in penance) he will not be saved.
Be the Brahman never so vile, he still rules the three worlds. (A gibe at priestly
infallibility and popular credulity.) Whatever a Brahman pours out is holy water.
Trace not the source of a river, nor the parentage of a Brahman : the one is mud, the
other dirt. When a Chaube dies he becomes a monkey ; when a monkey dies he
becomes a Chaube. Who is fairer than the faithless Kashmiri Brahman : the leper.
When the Brahman drowns he drags his clients down. A Bagar, a south-east
Panjabi, brings famine ; a Brahman brings bad luck. The absent-minded Brah-
man ate beef and said, " By God, never again ! " Three Kanaujias and thirteen
fireplaces. (A skit on the. fuss that the Kanaujia Brahmans make about cere-
monial observances, especially in the matter of cooking.)
To invite a Brahman is to open your door to an enemy. Strain water before
you drink it and test a Brahman before you make him your family priest. When
we are by ourselves he is my family priest. (He is too disreputable to associate
with in public.) Waste not your breath on a Brahman, nor converse with an
ascetic. Better have leprosy than a Brahman for a neighbour. A Brahman and
a goat are a nuisance to their neighbours. The Brahman next door brews a
quarrel and settles it (for a consideration). A village with a Brahman is like a
tank full of crabs. Keep clear of a Brahman as you would of a horse's hind legs.
A Srimali or West Indian Brahman is best asleep ; he carries a plague in his
pocket. One Nagar Brahman, nine hundred devils ; two, God knows what is
coming ; three, certain disaster ; four, sudden death. Trust a Pariah in ten things,
a Brahman in none. When the gods give, beware of the Brahman. A Brahman
has no pity, not even if his brother dies in his house. A Brahman, a dog, and a
barber growl at their own kith and kin. A hungry Brahman will sell his gods.
God knows right from wrong ; the Brahman only knows dai (pulse) from rice.
Walk among snakes but steer clear of Vaishnava Brahmans. Kill a cat, kill a
Brahman. Set a Brahman to kill a snake. (If he is bitten no one will miss him.)
If a Brahman is at hand, why swear by your child ? (The person on whom a false
oath is taken is supposed to die.) May you be cursed with a Brahman servant.
Guruji (priest) is always to the fore, except when there is a river to be crossed.
(Post of danger.) Twelve Brahmans have the strength of a goat. A Brahman's
wife will speak you fair. Why do you look like a Brahman to whom a daughter
has been born ? Give a Brahman's daughter money, and she will say the Muham-
madan creed. (Will stick at nothing.) A Brahman has no sense ; he will sell his
cow buffalo (which gives milk) and buy a mare (which he cannot ride). A Brah-
man out of work will worship his Paila (the stool on which he keeps his sacrificial
implements). Client sorry. Brahman merry. (He will be paid to propitiate the
powers that bring the misfortune.) " Brahman, why don't you marry ? " " Thanks,
my village perquisites satisfy me " (Droits de seigneur?). Is that stump a stalk
for me, and the cocoanut for the Nambutri Brahman? (The Nambutris in
Malabar get the pick of the Nayar girls.) I was just combing my beard when he
APPENDIX I 307
brought me here and called me a Brahman. (An Assam proverb, apparently
alluding to the manufacture of Brahmans from Bengali Muhammadans.) He
posed as a Brahman, but his name was Piroz Khan. The Ahlr's (herdsman's)
belly is deep ; but the Brahman's is a bottomless pit. The Brahmans' bellies are
full ; they lie about like gorged bufifaloes. A Brahman has faith only after a meal-
A Brahman risks everything for a dinner. A scanty loin-cloth and an empty
stomach ; by these you may know the Brahman. Rice on his plate and-his sacred
thread in his hand. When the Brahman's stomach is over-full a dish of curds sets
it aching. Life is dear to us Brahmans ; we have eaten our fill ; give us money to
take us home. Other people's flour and butter, what do they cost the Brahmans ?
The Brahman gets cake to eat ; the children of the house may lick the mill-stone .
The pony grows fat in Asarh (June-July, when it is too hot to ride), the Brahman
in Bhadra (July-August, when ancestors are worshipped and Brahmans fed).
The Brahman wanted both Hindu sweets and Muhammadan loaves, and got
neither. You will repent, Brahman, and eat the same pulse after all. A hungry
Brahman is like a tiger. Vishnu gets the empty litany ; the Brahman takes the
sacred food. (The offerings to Hindu idols are eaten by the priests.) " Brahman,
Brahman, here is uncooked food for your dinner." " That will do to take home,
but first give me a dinner here." After dinner a Brahman rubs his belly and a
Jogi (ascetic) his head. The vegetables are rotten, give them to the Brahman.
A degraded Brahman, give him a dead cow. The Brahman wore flowers and the
gardens were stripped bare. A Brahman's cow eats little, but gives much milk.
O God, let me not be born a Brahman, who is always begging and is never
satisfied. A Brahman will beg with a lakh (Rs. 100,000) in his pocket. A one-
eyed cow for the Brahman (Give him what is useless). A black cow for the
Brahman (Give him of your best, as the scriptures enjoin). Vultures and Brah-
mans spy out corpses. What is written in the Brahman's book (the duty of alms-
giving) is tied up in his wife's shawl. The Brahman asks, the Baniya pays. The
Brahman's son lives by begging. To a clerk a bribe, to a Brahman a gift. A cat
that will not lap milk, and a Brahman who refuses a bribe. A Brahman's hand
and an elephant's trunk are never at rest. A Brahman will wriggle and twist till
he has done you out of both interest and principal. Give the Brahman a corner of
your veranda and he will soon have the whole house. Is the ridge-pole of the
Brahman's house made of bamboo ? (Proverb of the improbable.) The trader
has lost his capital : the Brahman claims his percentage of the profits. (Baniyas
in western India set apart a pice in the rupee of their profits to give to Brahmans.)
The Patel (village headman) and his wife may die, but the Brahman must have
his fee. The son of the house cannot afford a wife, but his father must pay for the
wedding of the Brahman's son.
Ask a Brahman for alms. (Blood from a stone.) If you dine with a Brahman,
you go away hungry. A Brahman's servant is worked like an oil-presser's bullock,
and gets nothing but stale bread. A Brahman out of work lives on pulse. Give a
Brahman waste flour or bran, and he will make bread with it. When four
Brahmans meet, they dine off sweets or starve (Caste scruples and ceremonial
observances). It is poison to a Brahman to dine at home. A Brahman's guest ;
a prostitute's wedding. If a sheep comes into a Brahman village each one will
get a hair. The pulse is in the market (not yet bought), but the Brahman beats
his wife and asks " will you make it thick or thin ? " The Siidra prostrated himself :
the Brahman dimned him for his father's debt.
308 PEOPLE OF INDIA
BHAT.
(Bard and Genealogist.)
What is the use talking to a Bhat : he smacks his lips like a camel. A hungry
Bhat will set the village on fire. A Bhat, a Charan, and a dog will sit at the
door ; they will not go away when you have fed them and they will feel no shame.
(Alludes to the practice of sitting dharna at a man's door to recover a debt.) A
Bhat went into business and made his hundred into thirty. Bhats, Bhatiyaras and
harlots are a bad lot : when you come in they are civil : when you leave they don't
care.
RAJPUT.
(Warrior and Landholder.)
The Rajput is in the front of the fight. The wall may give way ; the Rajput
will stand fast. It is ill dealing with a Rajput ; sometimes you get double value,
sometimes nothing at all. Let him alone when he is full : do not meddle with him,
when he is empty : a Rangar (Muhammadan Rajput) is only bearable in his own
house or in his grave. The Rangar and Giijar are two ; the cat and dog are two ;
but for these four one might sleep with open doors. A Rangar is best in a wine
shop, or in prison, or on horseback (as a trooper), or at the bottom of a deep hole.
The Rangar and the devil are enemies of religion ; they sin themselves and tempt
others to sin. The Baniya lives on air, the Hora swings himself, the Rajput
drinks kusambha (a decoction of opium), and a woman plays tricks. , Rajput and
Miyan — braggarts both. Gossip for the Baniya, for the Rajput a song, sweets for
a Brahman and music for a ghost. A Rajput is bred in poverty. At a Rajput
wedding there is nothing to eat and you must sleep in the open. A Rajput
wedding is like a fire of maize stalks ; there is plenty of drumming and very little
dinner. Grudge not the ghi; the horse will be useful in battle. (Rajput's answer
to his wife when she demurred to his wasting ghi on his horse, while antelopes did
very well on grass.) He ought to be grateful-to me: I married his female
relations. (Allusion to the difficulties of Rajputs in finding husbands for their
girls.) He starves himself but keeps a Bhat to sing his exploits at his door.
(Rajput pride.)
You can no more make an ascetic out of a Rajput than a bow out of a pestle.
The Rajput says, " I have been suckled at the breast of a Rajputni." There is no
end to the clans of Rajputs and the varieties of rice. The Baghel and the Gohel
(clans of Rajputs) are fierce as steel. When asleep a Rajput, when awake a fool.
Rajputs live on dried-up crusts ; they have to grind corn, and when they beg for
butter-milk they hide the cup. The Rajput is your friend only so long as it pays
him. The marriages of Rajputs are full of pomp and splendour, but meals are to
be had only from heaven.
MEO.
(Cultivator and Freebooter.)
When a Meo gives his daughter in marriage he gets from the bridegroom a
mortar full of silver. (Referring to the high bride-price paid by the Meos.) The
Meo's son will nurse his revenge for twelve years.
BAIDYA.
(Physician.)
Let no man fix his abode where there is no wealth, no divine teacher, no
magistrate, no river, and no physician. Sect marks on his forehead, and " Govind,
Govind " on his lips, he pretends to be a physician. He cannot even find the pulse.
APPENDIX I 309
yet he doctors every one ; what is it to the Baidya if his helpless patient dies?
The disease has eaten the Bej's (quack-doctor's) nose. Rising and falling is the
Baidya's lot, provided the original stock remains sound. (The allusion is to the
complicated rules of inter-marriage among the Baidyas of Bengal, under which
the social status of a family is determined by the marriages of the daughters.)
KAYASTH.
(Clerk.)
A Kayasth is a man of figures (A theorist). Trust not a Kayasth, a crow, or a
snake without a tail. A young Kayasth is as cunning as an old gipsy. Whoso
thinks he can jockey a Kayasth is a great fool. . The pen is the Kayasth's weapon.
A Kayasth's son should be either learned or dead : an ignorant Kayasth is as an
oil-presser's bullock. The youngest amongst Kayasths. (The fag of the family.)
The son of a Kayasth lives by the point of his pen. In a Kayasth's house even
the cat learns two letters and a half. The strings of a sieve, a bit without a bridle,
and a Kayasth servant are three useless things. Half a loaf is enough ; I am a
Kayasth, not a beast. Drinking comes to a Kayasth with his mother's milk.
Beware of the Kayasth who wears a gold necklace. (The suggestion is that a
Kayasth money-lender is a merciless creditor.) They will die if you touch them,
but still they crawl and bite — where have these two creatures, bugs and Kayasths,
come from ? A Kayasth who can pay cash is the devil ; he is an angel when deep
in debt. Wherever three Kayasths are gathered together a thunderbolt is sure to
fall. When honest men fall out the Kayasth gets his chance. Kayasths, crows,
and roras (loose ponies) are much of a muchness. Where there are no tigers the
Kayasth will become a shikari. The Kayasth was eleven months in his mother's
womb, yet he did not bite her : why ? he had no teeth.
JAT.
(Punjab Cultivator.)
No kindness in a Jat, no weevil in a stone. A Jat is your friend as long as you
have a stick in your hand. Bind up a wound, tie up a Jat. To be civil to a Jat is
like giving treacle to a donkey. Kill the Jat ; let the snake go. When a Jat runs
wild it takes God to hold him. A Jat's laugh would break an ordinary man's ribs.
What does a Jat know about dainties ? he might as well be eating toad-stools.
When a Jat becomes refined there is a great run on the garlic : when a Jat learns
manners he blows his nose with a door-mat. If a Hindki cannot harm you he will
leave a bad smell as he goes by. Wheedle a Pathan, but heave a clod at a Hindki.
(Pathans calls the Jats Hindki.)
The Jat's damri (half a pie) draws blood : the Baniya's hundred does not break
the skin. (If you borrow half a pie from a Jat he will dun you for it as much as a
Baniya would for Rs. 100.) If a Jat gives you butter-milk he will put a rope round
your neck. The Jatni wetted her thread : the Karar put a stone in the scale. A
good sort is the Jatni ; hoe in hand she weeds the fields with her husband. When
it is sowing time with the Jat (and help is needed) every one is his aunt or his
sister-in-law ; when the crop is ripe he does not know his own sister. The Jat's
baby has a plough-handle to play with. The Jat stood on his corn-heap and
called out to the King's elephant-drivers, " Hi, there, what will you take for those
little donkeys ? "
Doubt the solvency of a Jat who wears white clothes and eats chicken. If a
Jat stops ploughing in Sravan, one of the months in the rainy season, he ruins
himself ; if an old man marries, he puts his beard in the fire. There is little to
choose between a Jat and a pig ; but the Jat weighs more, and grubs up a whole
3IO PEOPLE OF INDIA
acre while the pig is grubbing a hole. Says the Jat, " Come, my daughter, join
hands and circle the marriage fire ; if this husband dies, there are plenty more."
(Jats allow widows to marry.) Put not your trust in ghi kept in an earthen pot, in
a Hindu's beard, in a father of many daughters, or in a debt due from a Jat. (The
ghi will taste of the pot ; the Hindu may shave his beard ; the father's means will
be exhausted in getting his daughters married ; and the Jat will repudiate his
debt.) In a company of Jats there is ceaseless chatter. A scythe has no sheath,
a Jat has no learning. Saith the Jat, " Listen, wife, we have got to live in this
village ; if the folks say a cat walked off with a camel we must chime in."
A whole family and one wife between them. (Allusion to the fraternal
polyandry believed to prevail sub rosa among the Jats.) O Jat, abandon your
neighbour's couch. You may fathom the acrobat's art, but not the wit of a Jat.
(The reference is to a Rabelaisian tale of how a king had sworn a rash oath to
make over his kingdom to a female acrobat (Natni) if no one could defeat her.
Whereupon a Jat climbed the Natni's pole, sat on the top and besprinkled the
spectators after the manner of Gulliver in Lilliput. The Natni could not compete
with this, and so the kingdom was saved.)
KTJNBI OB, KURMI.
(Cultivator.)
No month without a day ; no village without a Kunbi. Better a solvent Kurmi
than a bankrupt millionaire. The Kunbi is always planting, whether his crop
lives or dies. Rain in Hathiya gladdens the Kunbin's heart. (An asterism in
which rain is specially beneficial to the autumn crops.) Rain in September brings
the Kurmin golden earrings. A basket on her head and a child on each hip — by
this you may know the Kunbin. Kunbis and flour improve with pounding. You
will as soon grow a creeper on a rock as make a Kurmi your friend. A Kunbi has
no sense ; he forgets whatever he learns. A Kunbi with a stye on his eyelid is as
savage as a bull. A Kunbi is as crooked as a sickle, but you can beat him
straight. The Kunbi is so obstinate that he plants thorns across the path. The
Kunbi went cowherding and earned an earthen pot. A Kunbi does not know an
upright from a cross. The master sits at home and the field is full of thorns. A
Konkani ghost pounds rice. (A gibe at the cowardice of the Kunbi of the Konkan,
the rice-growing country between the western Ghats and the sea.) The Kunbi's
son has nothing but a loin-cloth, but is great at giving alms. A Kunbi's bounty
— you must beat him first.
AKAIN.
(Market Gardener.)
A cow is a good beast, and an Arain is a good cultivator. If you trust in God,
put no trust in an Arain. Kill the Arain and the Chandar bird : the one will slander
you, the other will eat your grapes.
GIRTH.
(Punjab Cultivator.)
When the rice is bending with its own weight the Girth looks round and
swaggers. You cannot make a saint of a Girth or teach a buffalo modesty. You
cannot make a widow of a Girthni or change a bull-buffalo into a barren cow.
(Girths allow widows to marry, and the women are credited with making free use
of the privilege.)
APPENDIX I 311
REDDI.
(Madras Cultivator.)
The Reddi fed his dog like a horse and barked himself. The Reddi who had
never been on a horse sat with his face to the tail. When the clumsy Reddi got
into (i palankin it swung from side to side. The envious Reddi ruined the village
while he lived and was a curse to it when he died.
AHOM AND BHUIYA.
(Assam Landholders.)
For the Ahom the chalang, for the Hindu the beij I am in your hands, do with
me what you will. (The chalang is the Ahom form of marriage ; ^£zthe Hindu
form. The proverb purports to express the feelings of a newly-married bride.)
Be it lorn, be it crumpled, it is still a silk scarf : be he young, be he old, he is
still a Bhuiya's son. (Social position of landholders.)
VELLALA.
(Madras Cultivator.)
The agriculture of the Vellala of to-day is no agriculture. The Vellala was
ruined by adornment, the harlot by finery.
BANIYA.
(Trader and Money-lender.)
A Baniya's heart is no bigger than a coriander seed. A friendly Baniya, a
chaste courtesan. (Proverb of the impossible.) The faith of a Komati. {Punica
fides. The Komati is the trader of the Telugu country.)
The grain merchant turns pice into lakhs or lakhs into pice. Shah first,
Badshah afterwards. (The Baniya's progress.) A timid Baniya loses both
principal and interest. A Baniya has credit, a thief has none. A well-known
Baniya prospers ; a well-known thief gets hanged. A Baniya robs his friend, a
thief his acquaintance. First beat the Baniya, then the thief Four thieves
robbed eighty-four Baniyas. (Cowardice and disunion.) In a full boat the Baniya
is a dead-weight. Trust neither the Baniya nor the ferryman. If a Sud (Amritsar
Baniya) is on the other side of the river, leave your bundle on this side. The
Chetti (Madras Baniya) and the goldsmith. {Arcades ambo.') No one knows
what a Chetti is worth till he is dead. The outside of his turban is white,
but inside it is all rags. Profit may be made by a rise of rates, but not by using
false weights. The Gandhi (grocer or druggist) buys a basketful for a rupee
and sells it for a rupee per tola. Gandhis and doctors are close friends. You
cannot set up as a Gandhi with one bit of ginger. A petty ginger-seller and
wants news of the steamer ! (As if he expected a large consignment.) Hira
Dalai, with a pice worth of nuts, calls himself a merchant (his name means
" diamond "). To-day a Baniya, to-morrow a Potdar (coin-tester). The mouse
found a rag and set up as a cloth merchant. The grocer steals his own sugar.
(To keep his hand in.) Spilt salt is doubled. (By picking up dust.) A Baniya's
five-J^r weight ! (Typical illustration of fraud.) What can the poor Baniya do ?
the scales tip themselves ! The simple Baniya weighed in some pice with the
cloves. (And thus gave short weight.) The Jat's wife soaked her yarn (to make
it heavy), but the Baniya's weights were light. The Chetti cut the price ; the
weaver cut the width. A frightened Baniya gives full weight. To recover five the
Baniya spends fifty. (Litigation for bad debts.) A Baniya short of a job will weigh
his own weights or shift rice from one barn to another. A Baniya will start an
312 PEOPLE OF INDIA
auction in a desert. An insolvent Baniya keeps his accounts on the wall. (Where
he can rub them out.) A bankrupt Baniya sets up as a broker ; a bankrupt Parsi
as a liquor-seller. When a Baniya talks of old times you may know that he is in
a bad way. When a buffalo is full she refuses oil cake ; when a Baniya is well off
he gives time to his debtors ; when a Jat prospers he starts a quarrel ; when your
banker is in a bad way he fastens upon you. When the Jat does well he shuts up
the path (by ploughing it) ; when the Kirar (money-lender) does well, he shuts up
the Jat. A bankrupt Baniya puts on the robe of the mendicant and begs from
door to door. Even when insolvent a Chetti is a Chetti ; silk is silk though never
so torn. Your debt to a Baniya grows like a rubbish heap. A Baniya's account,
a horse's gallop. The Baniya has him by the scalp-lock. A Baniya is no one's
friend : if he takes a walk it is only for gain. If a Baniya's son tumbles down he
is sure to pick something up. Trust not a drowning Baniya ; he is not going down
stream for nothing ; let him sink or swim. Only a madman is wiser than a
Baniya ; only a leper is whiter than an Englishman. If four Baniyas meet they
rob the whole world. When the merchant started adorning himself the whole town
was plundered. The Baniya has taken the field and the village is full of relations.
(Poverty and obligations.) A Baniya for neighbour is like a boil in the armpit. I
tilled the field ; the Baniya fiiUed his granary. The Baniya nets the wise ; the
Thag strangles the fool. The Dom borrowed ten from the Baniya and repaid a
hundred. You can't pass a false coin on a Baniya. A Baniya's terms are in-
definite ; he says one thing at night and another in the morning. Trust a tiger, a
scorpion, a snake, but a Baniya's word you can never take. (Cradle song in
Gujarat.) The Baniya's urine breeds scorpions. He has the jaws of an alligator
and a stomach of wax. A Baniya and a drum are made to be beaten. The
Baniya's greeting is a message from the devil. There are three shameless ones —
the Baniya, the Ahir and the whore. A crow, a Kirar (shopkeeper) and a dog ;
trust them not even when asleep. Father a Baniya, son a Nawab. Better a
leprous forehead than a Modh Baniya for your neighbour. There is no stopping
a child or a Saukar. (The idea is that a money-lender demands payment as per-
sistently as a child clamours for something which it wants.) He won't lend money
and he won't advance grain : what does he mean by calling himself a Sah (village
money-lender and shopkeeper) ? What the Baniya writes God alone can read.
(In most parts of India the trading castes keep their accounts in a special
character which is very difficult to read.)
The dogs starve at a Baniya's feast. Will a Baniya eat ghi and khichri
every day : not he, he eats his own treacle in fear and trembling. A Baniya's
wedding is run on the cheap. He chooses the bride for her skill in cooking, but
every one stares at her when she goes to the well. (For her good looks and her
ornaments.) The Baniya's wife spent a farthing on betel-nut : quoth he, " We
shall soon be ruined." Call a Baniya father and he will give you treacle. One
Bhuinhar is meaner than seven Chamars ; one Nuniar (Baniya) is meaner than
seven Bhuinhars. The Mahesri buys sugar; if the price falls he will sell his wife.
The Saraogi cooks rice, but gives parched gram to his friends. Scales with a long
beam and short strings, and a ser that weighs only three-quarters : by these you
may know the true-born Baniya. The Agarwal swaggers ; his mother a Bhatiyari
(cook), his father a Kalal (distiller). The Baniya does not trouble to curl his
moustache. Here comes the grain-dealer with a basket in his hand and a rosary
round his neck. (Affected piety.)
The Baniya bought up rotten grain and sold it dear : the beam of his scales
broke and his weights were worn thin : he flourished and the Jat perished : first
died the weavers (Jolaha), then the oilmen (Teli) : a rupee was worth only eight
annas : millet sold at the price of pistachio nuts, and wheat at the price of raisins :
APPENDIX I 313
the carts lay idle, for the bullocks were dead ; and the bride went to her husband
without the accustomed rites. (A picture of famine.) Wheat jumped from sixteen
sers, the rupee to thirty-two : " Oh, wheat, how hast thou dealt with me," cries the
dealer, beating his breast in the shop ; " as sure as I am a Khatri, no more wheat
for me. Oh ! that I had had my money made up into necklaces and beads."
(A picture of plenty.)
A Komati's evidence. (The story is that a Komati, being called in to identify a
horse about which a Hindu and a Musalman were quarrelling, said that the front
part of it looked like the Musalman's horse and the hind part like the Hindu's.)
A monkey's death, a Komati's adultery. (Both secret.) The Mudaliar's pride
wastes lamp-oil. The MudaUar has only a pound of rice ; but his pot is big
enough for a bushel. (Ostentation.)
A bamboo cannot fruit, a Khatri cannot plough. (When a bamboo flowers it
dies, if a trader takes to agriculture he is ruined.) When frost has killed the sugar-
cane, the money-lender pretends to be bankrupt : the Jat goes to borrow (to pay
his land revenue), the Khatri puts him off. A hundred goldsmiths make one Thag,
a hundred Thags make one brass-worker (Thathera), a hundred Thatheras make
one Khatri. Says the Khatri : " The thieves were four and we eighty-four ; the
thieves came on and we ran away." Minced Khatri makes Khoja. A Khoja is
poison hidden in honey ; he goes in like a needle and comes out like a sword.
From that sort of itch may the Lord deliver us. (Play on the word khujli, the
itch, and Khoja.) A mouthful in the morning is better than ten in the evening ;
one Khoja without experience is better than ten Kirars with it.
A crow, a Kirar, and a dog, trust them not even when asleep. You can no
more make a friend of a Kirar than a sati of a courtesan. A Kirar sleeps only to
steal. The nine Kirars felt all alone when they met the Rathi with a hoe in his
hand. The Jatni wetted the thread ; the Kirar put a stone in the scale.
BABHAN.
(Bihar Landholder.)
Rice and the Babhan share the same lot. (Both should be pounded, and of
both there are many varieties.) If Hararias, Kodarias, and Bhusbharats
(sections of the Babhan caste) would die, Tirhut would be purged of its sin. Trust
not a Babhan, not even if he stand in the Ganges and swear by the ammonite, by
the life of Krishna, and by his own son.
NAPIT OR HAJJAM.
(Barber.)
The crow among birds, the barber among men. Among men most deceitful is
the barber, among birds the crow, among creatures of the water the tortoise.
The Hajjam shaves all, but none shaves the Hajjam. Barbers, doctors, pleaders,
prostitutes, all must have cash down. The barber, the washerman, the tailor —
all three rogues. Stick to your barber, change your washerman. The bridegroom .
gets a wife and the barber burns his fingers. (The barber lights the lamps
at the wedding.) Here comes the barber with his razor ; not a hair will be
spared. (A reference to the custom of shaving a man completely when he performs
penance for a breach of caste rules.) The razor is sharp, mother, what are you
crying about ? (Addressed to a newly-made widow about to have Ker head
shaved, the disfiguring custom of western India.) The Brahman blessed the
barber, and the barber showed his glass. (Diamond cut diamond, both castes
living by fees.) Vain as a barber. A barber by birth, with a Parsi name.
Arrogant as a barber, affected as a washerman. A man to carry the barber's bag !
314 PEOPLE OF INDIA
A slave under a slave and under him a barber. At a barber's wedding all are
lords. (In Bihar the barber is ironically called Thakur.) A clumsy barber wants
many razors. (A bad workman quarrels with his tools.) To shave like a hill
barber. A barber learns by shaving fools. A barber out of work bleeds the wall,
shaves a footstool, a buffalo, a cat, his shaving pot, etc. As the idol so the burner
of incense ; as the barber so the strop. The barber's rubbish heap does not lack
hair. What cares the barber if he cuts the child's head ? If the washerman's son
dies the barber cares not a hair. Beat a barber on the head with a shoe, you will
not make him hold his tongue. Touching barbers and their gossip, the wise say,
" Throw a dog a morsel to stop his mouth.'' (Choke off a reporter with a scrap
of news.) A Hajjam found a purse and all the world knew it. The riches of a
Hajjam ! An elephant in a Hajjam's house ! (Proverbs of the impossible.) A
burglary at a Hajjam's ; stolen, three pots of combings ! The tailor's to-morrow
never comes, but the barber must be up to time. The barber and the washerman
never come in time. The tailor steals your cloth, and the goldsmith your gold ;
the barber can steal nothing but your hair. The barber is so rich that he asks for
a virgin bride ! The barber's son-in-law has his moustache shaved at his wedding.
If you go back four generations you will find that your uncle was a barber.
(Suggests that the barber is unduly intimate with the women of the household.)
In a Palle village the barber is the schoolmaster. (Palle, a low fishing caste in
Madras.) A barber, a dog, and a hawk are no good when full ; a bullock, a
Baniya and a king are no good when empty. Three useless things — a king with
no subjects, a he-goat with no flock, a barber with no customers. What can a
bald man owe to the barber's mother ? A Dom made friends with a barber and
got shaved for nothing. A barber's penny. (All profit and no risk.) A barber
with bamboo nail-scissors. (Inexperience.) The barber's son learns to shave,
the wayfarer gets cut. Nails grow at the sight of the barber. A barber's wit has
sixteen sides. When a girl talks cleverly you may know she is a barber's
daughter.
SONAK.
(Goldsmith.)
The goldsmith, the tailor, the weaver are too sharp for the angel of death :
God alone knows where to have them. Trust not the goldsmith ; he is no man's
friend, and his word is worthless. If you have never seen a tiger, look at a cat ;
if you have never seen a thief, look at a Sonar. The goldsmith's ear-boring does
not hurt. Break up old ornaments, order new ones, and the Sonar is happy. No
thief like the goldsmith ; no bumper crop but in irrigated land. The wearer has
the bracelet, the Sonar has the gold. The Sonar will ruin your ornaments (by
mixing base metal with the gold supplied to him) and will clamour for wages
besides. A Sonar will rob his mother and sister ; he steals gold even from his
wife's nose-ring ; if he does not steal, his belly will burst with longing. A little
goes in hammering, a little goes in melting, and there is no gold left. (A Sonar's
methods.) One goldsrriith and one who sifts his ashes. (Two rogues.) The
Sonar works in gold and his wife dies of hunger. Buying or selling, the goldsmith
is always content. (He makes a profit whether he buys old ornaments or sells
new ones.) If a Sonar comes to the other bank of the river, keep an eye on your
bundle o.n this side. In an out-of-the-way village the goldsmith's wedding party
will stay for seven days. (Shameless sponging.) The fool who made friends with
the goldsmith. Only a goldsmith knows a goldsmith's tricks. Is the goldsmith's
dog afraid of the sound of the hammer ?
APPENDIX I 31S
KUMHAB.
(Potter.)
A potter is always thinking of his pots. The clay is on the wheel ; the potter
may shape it as he will. Thd clay said to the potter, " Now you trample on
me ; one day I shall -trample on you." (When you are dead.) Turned on the
wheel, yet no better for it. (Persistent ill luck.) Praise not the pot till it has been
fired. You bought the pot ; do you think the potter will change it ? A wife is no
earthen pot that you can change at will. (What can't be cured must be endured.)
If all the pots that are made lasted and all the children that are born lived, there
would be no room left on the earth. The potter eats from broken pots. As the
potter so the pot ; like father like son. The potter will not ride his ass if you tell
him to. The potter's wives fell out, and the donkey's ears were twisted. A
Kumhar in a temper with his wife pulls his donkey's ears. The wrath of the
potter's wife falls on her ass. The Kumhar's ass runs after any one with muddy
breeches. Sooner or later the potter's daughter-in-law must come to the refuse
heap. (Kumhars burn refuse in their kilns and cannot afford to seclude their
women.) The Kumharin has become sati for the death of the Teli's ox. (Proverb
of the meddlesome.) To the potter a year, to the cudgel a minute. (The making
and breaking of pots.) The Kumhar can sleep sound ; no one will steal his clay.
If you are civil to a potter he will neither respect you nor sell you pots. The
potter's bride must come to the kiln. Like selling pots in potters' street. A
dearth of pots in a potter's house. (Proverb of the impossible.) The proof of the
kiln is in the firing of the pots. In a deserted village even a potter is a scribe.
(Kumhars are supposed to be very stupid.)
CHURIHAK.
(Bangle-Maker.)
If the bangle-maker drops his load he wants a basket to pick up the bits.
(The bangles are of glass.) The bangle-maker can squeeze a girl's arm under her
husband's nose. (Bangles must be fitted, even in the zanana.)
LOHAE, KAMAR, ETC.
(Blacksmith.)
One stroke of a blacksmith is worth a goldsmith's hundred. Seven strokes by
a carpenter equal one by a Lobar. The Lobar is a bad friend ; he will either
burn you with fire or stifle you with smoke. Sparks are the lot of a blacksmith's
legs. Do not sit near a carpenter or near a blacksmith's forge. (For fear of chips
from the one and sparks from the other.) If you live with a blacksmith your
clothes will be burned. To sell a needle in the Lohar's quarter (Coals to New-
castle). If the bull must be branded let the Lobar do it. A blacksmith's shop —
like the place where donkeys roll. A monkey saw the good nature of the Kalian
and asked him to make it a pair of anklets. Don't buy the smith's pet maina even
if you can get it for a pice._ (The bird will mimic the noise of his hammer.)
When a child is born to a Kalian, sugar is distributed in the street of the dancing-
girls.* To keep house like a Kammalan (Said of slovenly management). If you
buy a cow from a Kammalan cut its ears first. The Kammalan's cloth — so thin
that the hair on his legs shows through, and so dirty that it will not burn. They
met the Kamaron the road and wanted him to make them a dao. (When he had
no tools with him.) Before the smith can make a screw he must learn how to
make a nail.
3i6 PEOPLE OF INDIA
BARHAI, SUTAR.
(Carpenter.)
When the work is done who remembers the carpenter ? For long things a
Sutar, for short ones a Lobar. (The former cuts up planks, the latter hammers
out bits of iron and makes them longer.) The carpenter's face ! (Not to be seen
when he promised to come.) The Sutar cuts the wood but saves the chips. (For
fuel.) Do not sit near the Sutar. (His chips fly.) A whore's oath and a Sutar's
chip. The Sutar's adze is as sharp as the gibe of the first wife at the second.
The Sutar thinks of nothing but wood, and his wife walks and talks in time to the
plane. A carpenter out of work planes his friends' buttocks. The fool of a Barhai
has neither chisel nor adze and wants to be the village carpenter.
Lifelong drudgery, like the carpenter, who can never stop making spoons of
cocoanut shell. A carpenter knows all sorts of wood, but cannot cut down a tree.
Will you find curds in the house of the carpenter or boiled rice in the house of the
niggard? The carpenter wants his wood too long, and the blacksmith wants his
iron too short.
BHARBHUNJA.
(Grain-parcher.)
A Bharbhunja's (grain-parcher's) daughter, and saffron on her forehead !
(Proverb of presumption.)
BHATIARA.
(Inn-keeper.)
Will the children of a Bhatiara die of hunger. The mother a cook, the son a
fop. The Bhatiara's platter is licked clean. The cook is dead ; the constable
weeps.
HALWAI.
(Confectioner.)
A confectioner's daughter and a butcher's mistress.
MALI.
(Gardener.)
The Mali may water the trees, but the season brings the flowers. The jackals
quarrel over the Mali's Indian corn. In famine the Mali ; in plenty the weaver.
(Food comes before clothes.) Mother an oilwoman, father a Mali ; their son
a Muhammadan and calls himself Sujan Ali. (Reflexion on liaisons between
members of different castes.) Offend a Mali ; he will take your flowers but not
your life.
PAM"SARI.
(Druggist.)
A mouse found a bit of turmeric and set up as a Pansari.
TELI.
(Oilman.)
What will an oilman do if you set him to weave ? Two Teli^ and foul talk.
Whose friend is the Teli ; he earns a rupee and calls it eight annas. An oilman
sits at ease while his mill goes round. The Ghanchi's bullock walks miles and gets
APPENDIX I 317
no further. (He goes round and round in the mill.) A Ghanchi's bullock crushed
in the oil-mill. (Over-work.) Don't be a Brahman's servant or an oil-presser's
bullock. The oil-presser lost his bullock and is still looking for the peg to vi^hich
it was tied. The Teli's bullock is always blind. What does an oilman know
about the savour of musk ? An oilman's daughter, and she climbs up a siras tree
and sits on the top branch ! A Ghanchi's daughter and has never heard of oil-
cake ! The mother a day labourer, the father an oilman, and the son a " bunch
of flowers." (Parvenu's swagger.) The Telin saves a little oil whenever she
serves, but God takes all at once. (She gives short measure, but loses all when
the jar breaks.) A woman who quarrels with her Telin must sit in the dark.
A woman who marries a Teli need never wash her hands with water. The Red-
book (Qazi) up and spoke, " What made the ox fight ? The oil-cake you fed it
on ; so give me the ox and pay a fine into the bargain."
AHIR, GOLA, ETC.
(Cowherd.)
You will get good out of an Ahir when you get butter out of sand. Can a
crust be dainty, can an Ahir teach religion .' An Ahir's wealth ; an earthen pot.
The churner is worth more than the pail.
Koshi (the head of the Ahirs) has fifty brick houses and several thousand
swaggerers. An Ahir, however clever, can sing nothing but his Lorik song. (A
tribal ballad of the origin of the Ahlrs.)
Better be kicked by a Rajput, or stumble uphill, than hope for anything from
a jackal, from spear-grass, or from an Ahir. The Ahir's business has been
done and he won't stand us even a draught of butter-milk. See the perversity
of the Ahir's wife : she takes out the grain and serves the husks. The barber's
son learns to shave on the Ahir's head. (A clown for a shaving-block.) As long
as a Musahar (a gipsy-like menial) lives, the Ahir will get no good out of his cows.
A Gola, a drum beater and a procurer are nobody's friends. A Gola's heart is
as hollow as a bamboo. Never be civil to a Gola ; he is full of vices ; his mother
is a bad lot aiid he counts his fathers by the dozen. The cow is in league with
the milkman and lets him milk water into the pail. A Gola's quarrel. (Drunk
at night and friends in the morning.) For a Gola the court is always next door.
(Litigiousness.) The Gola and his wife fall out and their donkey gets his ears
cropped. The Gola was guilty, but the Ghanchi lost his bullock. A donkey has
more sense than a Gola. Calls himself a Gola but eats kanji. (Rice gruel made
with water.) If I have to pay for my curds, what do I gain by flirting with the
milkmaid ? A milkman would not give pure milk even to his father.'
GUJAE.
(Cultivator.)
When you see a Gujar hammer him. You cannot tame a hare, or make a
friend of a Gujar. Dogs, monkeys and Giijars change their minds at every step.
When all other castes are dead make friends with a Gujar. A house in ruins is
better than a village full of Giijars. It will remain waste unless a Gujar takes it.
(Said of poor land.) The Rangar and Gujar are two, the cat and dog are two ;
but "for these four you might sleep with open doors. A Giijar's daughter is a
box of gold. (The bride-price is high among Gujars.) A Dom made friends with
a Gujar ; the Gujar looted his house. We have caught the Gujar's wife ; fetch
a large basin to hold the ransom. Sense for a Gujar ; a sheath for a harrow.
(Two impossibles-) In nQ fn^n's land one makes friends with Gaddis and
Gujars.
3i8 PEOPLE OF INDIA
GARERI, BHARWAD.
(Shepherd.)
However good a shepherd he is still a bit of a fool. The shepherd looks for
his sheep while he has it on his shoulders. The shepherd who trusted a bear !
The shepherd said that the sheep would bite him and hid himself in a pot. For
one thing she is a Garerin ; for another she stinks of garlic. The Gareri got
drunk when he saw the Ahir in liquor. If you have never seen a ghost (J>hut),
look at a Bharwad. A squint-eyed Bharwad has seven hundred friends. (Every
one knows him by his squint.)
BANJARA.
(Carrier and Nomad.)
The Barijaras are honest and never steal. The Banjara's mother watches the
seasons (for her son's return from his periodical journeys). Watch for the home-
coming of a servant, a thief, a Thag and a Banjara. Strip off her shell, O Banjara,
and put it on some one more worthy. (Refers to the shell bracelets worn by married
women, and to the reputation of the Banjaris.)
GADHVI.
(Nomad and Cattle Dealer.)
However far the Gadhvi goes he is always at home. "Whither bound,
Gadhvi ? " " The beast that goes furthest will carry me." The Gaddi is a good-
natured sort of fool ; ask him for a cap and he will give you a coat.
DARZI.
(Tailor.)
Tailors, goldsmiths, and weavers are too sharp for the angel of death : God
only knows where to have them. The tailor's " this evening" and the shoe-maker's
" next morning " never come. A tailor's finishing, a goldsmith's polishing take
many days. However sharp his sight a Darzi is blind. (He sees nothing but
his work.) A Darzi's son is a Darzi and must sew as long as he lives. A Darzi
steals your cloth and makes you pay for sewing it. When four tailors meet they
talk about want of work. When a tailor is out of work he sews up the mouth of
his son. Sai, Merai, and Darzi, these be three ; " with our yards, scissors and
thread," say they, " we be six." A tailor's needle, now in embroidery and now
in canvas. What is it to a tailor whether he march or halt ? (He has only needle
and thread to carry.) A snake in a tailor's house ; who wants to kill it ?
DHOBI.
(Washerman.)
Every one has his clothes washed, but the Dhobi is always unclean (cere-
monially). Change your Dhobi as you change your clothes. The washerman
cries for his wages ; the master for his clothes. A Dhobi's dog ; neither at home
nor at the washing-place (A rolling stone). As many changes of linen as a Dhobi.
The king's scarf is used as the Dhobi's loin-cloth. At a. Dhobi's wedding they
all walk on cloth. (The customers' clothes are used as a carpet.) The Dhobi's
son is the swell of the village. The Dhobi's son is always smart on a whistle
and a bang. (The Dhobi whistles at his work and bangs the clothes on a stone
to drive the water through them. He then gives them to his son to wear.) A
APPENDIX I 319
washerman's finery is never his own. The Dhobi's house is robbed, and the
neighbours lose their clothes. The Dhobi's stone is his brother. Had you been
born a stone you might have been of use to a ; Dhobi. (Proverb of a worthless
fellow, good only to beat clothes on.) No soap is used unless many Dhobis live
together. (Effect of competition.) The Dhobi takes care not to tear his father's
clothes. A donkey has but one master and a washerman has but one steed.
Steal the Dhobi's donkey and give it to the Dom. (Rob Peter to pay Paul.) At
the Dhobi's wedding the donkeys have a holiday. The mother a laundress and
the son a draper. In a Koiri village the Dhobi is the accountant. (He is the
only man who can count.) To see a Dhobi the first thing in the morning brings
bad luck. The washerman knows when the village is poor ; the orderly knows
when his master has been degraded. Though a washerman were dying of thirst
rain would kill him straight off. A washerman who has learnt his letters throws away
his washing-board. A new washerman washes with care. The washerman had
a drum beaten when he started washing. (Directed at the arrogance of washer-
men.) If a washerman is sick he gets well at the washing- stone. (He cannot
stop work.) What cares the washerman for one who wears no clothes ? The
desire of the washerman is for the washerwoman ; the desire of the washerwoman
is for her donkey. A washerman's donkey. (Proverb of overwork.) Though
its life is oozing out of its eyes the washerman's donkey must carry the linen home.
Will ploughing with an ass make a farmer of the washerman ? Was it the wind
or the washerman that spoiled the cloth ?
KAI.AI..
(Distiller and Liquor Seller.)
Oil and bribes soften most things, but not a kupa, a Kalal, or a Musalman.
(A kiipa is a large leather bottle used for carrying ^^?.) If you have never seen a
Thag take a look at a Kalal. Death may budge, but a Kalal won't. The Kalal's
daughter went to drown herself, and the people said "she is drunk." The
drunkard's evidence is in favour of the Kalal. If you want to climb trees you
must be born a Shanar. (A South Indian caste who tap palm trees for toddy.)
JOLAHA.
(Musalman Weaver.)
If he has a pot full of grain, a Jolaha thinks himself a Raja. A Jolaha's
daughter and calls her sisters " Bubu." (In imitation of high caste people.) How
should a weaver be able to reap barley ? The fool of a Jolaha went out to cut
grass when even the crows were going home. Kodo and marua are not real food
grains ; the Jolaha and Dhuniya are not real cultivators. The silly Jolaha has
found the hind peg of a plough and wants to start farming on the strength of it.
Last year I was a Jolaha ; this year I am a Shekh ; next year if prices rise I shall
be a Saiyad. A weaver by caste and his name is Fateh Khan. (Lord of Victory.)
Grod save us ! The Jolaha going a-hunting ! Pathans the slaves of Jolahas !
(Proverb of the impossible.) The weaver steals a reel at a time, but God
destroys whole bales. If a Jolaha leaves his loom and takes to travelling he
is sure to be knocked about. The Jolaha went out to see the rams fight and
got butted himself. If there are eight Jolahas and nine huqqas they fight for
the odd one. (None of them can count.) The Jolaha was one of twelve, he could
only find eleven and went off to bury himself. (He had omitted to count himself
and concluded that he must be dead.) A Jolaha will crack indecent jokes with
his mother and sister. The Jolaha's wife will pull her own father's beard.
A Jolaha reckons time by his own standard. The ass eats the crop and the
320 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Jolaha gets hammered. The Jolaha went to the mosque to get off his fasting,
and was told to say prayers as well. Id without a Jolaha ! (Impossible.) The
Jolahas came to a field of linseed by moonlight ; the leader said, " How blue the
water is ; I hope you all can swim." The Jolaha got into his boat, but forgot to
pull up the anchor ; after rowing all night he found himself where he was and
wept at the thought that his native village could not bear to lose him and had
followed him on his journey. A crow snatched a piece of bread from the
Jolaha's child and flew with it to the roof : before he gave the child any more
the Jolaha took away the ladder. The Jolaha listened to the priest reading the
Quran and delighted the reader by bursting into tears : on being asked what
part affected him most, he explained that the old MuUa's wagging beard reminded
him of the death of his pet goat. Even if you see the Jolaha brushing the newly
woven cloth, do not believe him if he says it is ready : he is as big a liar as the
Chamar. When his dogs barked at the tiger the weaver whipped his child. The
weaver's wife was fool enough to wrestle with a camel. The Moghal and the
Pathan have had their day ; now even the Tanti learns Persian. The Tanti
ruined himself by buying a pair of bullocks. (By taking to agriculture ) A
weaver in a small way of business took to weaving tasar silk. The thief was
seized with colic, and the weaver sat down on a wasp. (Proverb of sudden
misfortune.) The weaver digs a pit and falls into it himself. (His loom is sunk
in the ground.) There is neither yarn nor cotton, yet the Kori (Sind weaver)
beats his apprentice for not weaving cloth. What has a weaver to do with a
sword ? (Reputed cowardice.) The weaver weaves what he has in his mind.
DHUNIYA.
(Cotton Carder.)
No one meddles with the tailor and carpenter ; all comers beat the cotton
carder.
MARIYA or THATHERA.
(Brazier.)
No one knows the mind of women, crows, parrots and Mariyas. When the
Mariya meets his wife he beats her. One brazier swopping goods with another.
(Greek meets Greek.) Two Thatheras cannot make a deal.
NUNIYA.
(Earth- Worker.)
A Nuniya's daughter gets no rest, neither in her father's house nor in her
husband's.
KASAI.
(Butcher.)
A Kasai never tells the truth ; if he did he would not be a Kasai. Butchers
have no human feelings. If you have not seen a tiger, you must have seen a cat ;
if you have not seen a Thag, you must have seen a Kasai. To give a cow to a
butcher. (Putting sheep in charge of the wolf) A bad cow is best with the butcher.
The righteous man is in trouble and the butcher prospers. Pen-butchers (clerks)
are worse than cow-butchers. How can a Ramdasi (Hindu ascetic) live in a
village of Kasais ? The butcher hunted for his knife when he had it in his mouth.
APPENDIX I 321
RANGARI RANGSAZ.
(Dyer.)
A dyer wants to paint the town red ! (The point of the original is in the play
on the Marathi word Ranga, meaning both pleasure and colour.)
SAIiAT or SILAVAT.
(Stone Carver.)
A Salat out of work will cut stones.
NAIKIN or DEVADASI.
(Dancing Girl.)
The dancing girl who could not dance said the room was too small. Does a
dancing girl's daughter need to be taught dancing t
ATTAR.
(Perfumer.)
An Attar's scent bottle is a juggler's bag of triclcs. (He will call his one scent
whatever the purchaser demands.)
MACHHI, KOLI, ETC.
(Fisherman.)
Better three clouts from an oil woman than three kisses from a fishwife. (The
latter stinks offish.) A fisherman's tongue (Billingsgate). The fisherman wears a
rag, the Pantari (fishmonger) has gold in his ears. What does a fisherman know
about precious stones ? If the fishmonger saw what the net sees he would die of
joy. The Muhano (Sind fisherman) has a stomach-ache and his donkey is branded.
Sometimes the float is uppermost, sometimes the fisherman. (Fishermen float
face downwards on earthen pots which occasionally capsize.) A Machhi woman
will go on talking even after she has been buried. A fishwife dead is better than an
oil woman living. The buffalo and the Machhi woman both lose flesh in Phalgun.
(When the grass is dried up, and the stocks of grain have run short so that the
services of the Machhini as a professional grain parcher are not much in demand.)
A cow to a fisherman, a boat to a herdsman. (Square peg in round hole.) A
hungry Brahman will set fire to a village ; a hungry hill Koli will loot a house. The
hill Koli digs a hole at night (in the mud wall of the house which he is robbing).
CHAMAR, MOCHI, ETC.
(Tanner and Leather Worker.)
The Chamar and the jackal — both wily. The Chamar and the Dhed (birds of
a feather). Slippery as a Chamar. The Chamar knows about his last : his
curiosity goes no further. (JSfe sutor ultra crepidatn.) The Chamar always looks
at your shoes (to see if they want mending). The shoemaker's wife goes barefoot.
The shoemaker gets a smack in the face with a shoe of his own making. Offer old
shoes to the shoemaker's god. (The shortest way with a Chamar is to beat him
with a shoe.) The shoemaker sits on his awl and beats himself for stealing it.
Stitch, stitch, in the shoemakers' quarter ; stink, stink, in the tanners' quarter. The
cobbler's dirt, the barber's wound are both hard to bear. The cobbler's shoe
pinches ; the barber's razor cuts. What profits a wayfarer by the best of food in a
Chamar's house ? (The caste is unclean.) Too many tanners spoil the hide. The
R, PI 21
322 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Chamars quarrel and the Raja's saddle is torn. The Mochi's knife does not ask
where the leather comes from (i.e., whether it is clean or unclean). May you die
at a Mochi's door! (So that he may tan your skin.) The Mochi grieves at the
sight of his own skin. (Because he can make no use of it.) The Mochi's wife runs
away, but the Mochi goes on sewing. The good-looking Chamarin prides herself on
her complexion. A Chamar's daughter and her name is Raja Rani ! The Chamar's
daughter does deg-ar (compulsory unpaid labour) even in heaven. The Mochi's
aunt has smart clothes given to her, but his wife and mother go bare. (A reflexion
on the morals of the aunt.) If sandal-wood fell into the hands of a Chamar and
he used it to pound leather, what could the poor sandal-wood do ? (Unwilling
association with low people.) The Chamar said to the village headman : " How is
that buffalo of yours ? " (The skins of dead cattle are the perquisite of the village
Chamar, who is supposed to resort to poison to secure his rights.) Even a Chakkali
girl and the ear of the millet are beautiful when ripe (i.e., when the girl has
attained puberty). The spoiled child of the shoemaker made her dinner off shoes :
though she did not digest them they did her no harm. To buy leather from a
shoemaker. (Proverb of the inappropriate, as the shoemaker keeps leather to
make up into shoes.) A shoemaker's wife and a blacksmith's mare are always
the worst shod. She is a shoemaker's wife, but her feet burn for want of shoes.
My affairs are like Nandan's kingdom. (Nandan was a Chamar, who became a
king for three hours, and issued leather coin.) Now that Chamars may drink from
the Ganges the righteous die and the wicked live. (Formerly Chamars were
not allowed to touch the Ganges.) There is no hiding the belly from the midwife.
(Said of people who make a mystery of what is well known.) '
DOM.
(Scavenger.)
The Dom is the lord of death. (He provides the wood for cremating a
corpse.) Doms, Brahmans, goats — no good in time of need. Carts, boats and
Doms — all three run crooked. A Dom is a bad servant and a fiddle-bow a bad
weapon. A Dom met a barber ; one beat his drum, the other held up his mirror.
(Demanding their fees.) A Dom made friends with a barber and got shaved for
nothing. A Dom made friends with a weaver and got clothed for nothing. A
Dom made friends with a Baniya ; he borrowed ten and repaid a hundred. A
Dom sang for a Jat and got as much milk as he could drink. A Dom made
friends with a Ranghar and found no worse thief than he. A Dom made friends
with a Gujar ; the Gujar looted his house. A Dom made friends with a Kanjar ;
the Kanjar stole his dog. (Kanjars are gipsies and professional thieves and are
said to be fond of dogs.) A Dom his father and a Dom his grandfather, yet he
boasts of his noble birth. (After conversion to Islam.) Behind your back, the
Dom is a king. Encourage a Domni and she will bring her whole family and sing
out of tune. If donkeys could excrete sugar, Doms would not be beggars. A
Dom in a palanquin and a Brahman on foot. (Society upside down.) If a Dom
strips himself naked, what can you do to him ? (Shamelessness.) The fool of a
Domni put the antimony on her nose (Instead of on her eyelids.) A Domni's
slave. (Expression of contempt.) The fisherman Dom has seven wives and
never a bed for one. The Domni lifted the load without polluting it. The absent-
minded Domni took a net for a basket and called her husband kakai (elder
brother) in the dark. At the Dom's wedding the Dom may call the tune. The
Domni's son betrays his caste by drinking from an earthen pot. The Chandal
licks the platter, he leaves neither hair nor flies.
APPENDIX I 323
BHIIi.
The Bhil is the king of the jungle ; his arrow flies straight. The Bhil is
always ready for the prey. With a Bhil for escort your life is safe. If you please
him he is a Bhil ; if not, he is the son of a dog. Bhils are very shifty ; one
buttock bare, the other clothed. BhIls and Berads have no lack of children.
What is an aunt to a Mang or a niece to a Bhil. (Reflexion on their morality.)
As noisy as a company of Bhils. There is no dawdling in a Bhll's house.
(Referring to their wandering habits.)
DHED.
(Scavenger.)
Dheds are friends only with Dheds. When a Dhed dies the world is the
cleaner. Riches in the hands of a Dhed. (Put to a bad use.) To eat like a
Dhed. (To eat unlawful food.) A Dhed's tamarind, be it sweet or sour ! (It is
anyhow untouchable.) A Dhed looked at the water jar and thus polluted it. A
Dhedni's foster son. (A low fellow.) The Havaldar (steward) sent for a Dhedni
and she polluted the whole village. If a Dhed runs up against you, you must go
off and bathe. Even a Dhedni's feet are red for four days. (Until the henna
applied at her marriage has worn off.) Who will marry a Dhed's daughter?
Who would father a Dhed's children ? Annoy a Dhed and he throws up dust.
(In sweeping the road.) He went to the Dhed's quarter and found only a heap of
bones.
PARIAH.
Every village has its hamlet of Pariahs (outside its limits). The work of a
Pariah is only half done. If you teach a Pariah, will he unlearn his brogue ? A
palm tree casts no shade, a Pariah has no caste rules. The flower of a bottle
gourd stinks, a Pariah's song is unsavoury. If an ox grows fat, it will not stay in
the stall ; if a Pariah grows rice he will not sit on a mat. Not even a Pariah will
plough on a full moon day. If a Pariah offers boiled rice, will not the god accept
it ? He that breaks his word is a Pariah at heart.
MAHAB.
(Village Menial.)
The Mahar is dead ; he no longer defiles. The Mahar only meddles with you
at the village gate. (He is the gate-keeper of the walled villages in the Maratha
country.) Why is the Mahar's wife so stuck up ? She has got a cow's horn full
of grain. Why is the Mahar so stuck up ? He is holding the headman's horse.
Be it crooked or straight, the bread comes from the village. (The Mahar is said
to have fifty-two perquisites. One of them is the right to collect bread from house
to house.) To the Mahar's god the offering is an old blanket. The Mahar's child
has bones for playthings. (Animals that die in the village are the perquisite of the
Mahar.) Let the Chamar run away with the Mahar's mother.
MANG.
Trust not a Mang ; he will say anything. Mangs watch the forest-paths as
cobras watch treasure. (It is believed that each site of hidden treasure has its
keeper reborn in the form of a cobra.) What is an aunt to a Mang or a niece to
a Bhil ? (Neither has any morals.)
324 PEOPLE OF INDIA
PABSI.
A Parsi ! He loses no time in breaking his word. Parsis are educated and
yet they sell oil. (Considered rather a low occupation.) A Parsi out of work goes
to Pardhi. {Crceculus esuriens in ccelum jusseris tbit.) Why follow after Bezon
Surti ? (A notable Parsi swindler and hypocrite.) A Parsi's son ; the urine of an
ass. A Parsi youth never tells the truth. {Parsi bachcka, kabhi na bole sachcha.)
Grasias are not dirty, and Parsis are not o_utcasts. A bankrupt Baniya turns
broker ; a bankrupt Parsi starts a liquor shop. The day of Zoroaster ; open the
box and get out the brandy. If a Parsi gets rich, he takes a second wife, or buys
his neighbour's house. (Dating from before the Parsi Marriage Act by which at
the instance of the Parsis themselves the reproach of polygamy was removed from
their community.) Spectacles to the blind, sweets to the sick, a Parsi at a Hindu's
table. (Orthodox Hindus cannot eat with Parsis.) The Mali waters the jasmine,
the Bhisti looks for a well, the Andhyaru (Parsi priest) peers for a rich man's
death. (In quest of fees.) All dark in a house where you find an Andhyaru.
(Suggestion of scandal; notice the pun.) If a Dastur (priest) speaks, he will
dishonour his beard.
" Oh, Dasturji, how shall my sins be forgiven ? " " Present a gold cat, and a
silver necklace, and then we will see." The Parsi woman offers a cocoanut at the
Hindu Holi. Crows your uncles and Parsis your fathers. (Parsi repartee, in the
usual style of Oriental innuendo, to those who call them crows because they expose
their dead to be eaten by crows and vultures.) A Parsi's stroke^ike a cannon
ball. (A Parsi saying which one would like to trace to the achievements of Parsi
cricketers.) The Hindu worships stones ; the Musalman saints ; the religion of
the Parsi is as pure (from idolatry) as the water of the Ganges.
ASCETICS & DEVOTEES.
Who can identify a drug that has been powdered and an ascetic whose head
has been shorn? (Jogis do not say, and often do not know, what caste they
originally belonged to.) Who cares what was a Jogi's caste. Money will buy the
most pious of saints. In old days the Bhakats used to wash their firewood before
cooking ; now they do not even wash their feet. Penance alone does not make a
saint. You may put on saintly garb, O Jogi, but the ashes will cover no evil deeds.
A sect mark on his forehead and ten rosaries round his neck, in appearance a
saint, but at heart in love with a prostitute. An ascetic of yesterday, and matted
hair down to his knees. A naked woman will tempt a saint. When fish are in
season the Jogi loses his head. She went to the Fakir to learn morals ; the holy
man tore off her trousers. Follow your preceptor's precepts, not his practice.
One Sannyasi is as good as a hundred Brahmans. One widow has more virtue
than a hundred Dandis (Saivite ascetics who carry clubs). When a man cannot
get a wife he turns ascetic. When his crop has been burnt up, the Jat turns Fakir.
As soon as the ducks lay eggs the Bhakats eat them up. Is the pestle of the
dhenki heavier than the demands of the Bhakat ?
An ascetic's friendship spells ruin to his friends. A king, a Jogi, fire, and
water are not to be trusted. Whether the bitch die on the road or by the river,
the Jogi will say " see how my words have come true." It is a bad sign if a
Saiyad blows a horn (like a Fakir) or a Brahman wears a dagger. When the
Fakir goes mad he burns his own hut. Though the mountain may move, the
Fakir won't. The Fakir is happy in his old blanket. Better the rice of a mendi-
cant Brahman than the rice of a king riding on an elephant. Promise a Brahman
nothing, but promise a mendicant less. Even ascetics observe caste and religious
distinctions. Among shepherds no Saivas, among potters no Vaishnavas. A
Sannyasi's alms in Musalman street. (Going to the wrong shop.)
APPENDIX I 32s
A Fakir's bag contains everything. Who can stop a Fakir's tongue? A
Fakir's inn is where night overtakes him. To a Fakir a blanket is a shawl.
A Fakir, a borrower and a child are all devoid of understanding. What has a
Fakir to do with fighting ? Mendicancy is the veil that covers the lion. (Con-
cealed rapacity.) The Jogi and the profligate pass sleepless nights.
" Reverend father, what a crowd of disciples ! " " They will vanish, my son, as
soon as they are hungry." " What has a saint to do with dainties ? If there is no
butter-milk I can manage with curds." " Oh, mother, give me some sweets ; they
are very good for the eyes." " My son, if you have a taste for milk and cream you
should turn Nanakshahi." The local Jogi gets no alms. Too many ascetics
spoil the feast of Jagannath.
The Dhundia is neither Hindu nor Musalman ; neither Jogi nor Jati ; he is a
stupid fellow. If you follow the Dhundia's religion ill luck will follow you. The
Dhundia has an ebony walking-stick with a silk tassel, but for all that he is an
arrant knave. The Ganges is spotless, the Jangam is childless. What has
a Jangam to do with a sacred thread or a Brahman with trade? Company ruined
the Jangam ; solitude ruined the Domba (strolling clown).
MISCELIiAITEOUS.
The human race is a mixed crowd : some are Bhands and some Bhangis ; but
Bhands are better than Bhats. A Rand (prostitute), a Bhand and a Bhainsa
(buffalo) are dangerous if they turn against you. If a Bhand will hold his tongue
I will give him a buffalo. He cultivated with a Bhand for his partner ; the Bhand
took all the crop and said he had earned it by his music. What caste has the
sweeper, what credit the liar ? A Mochi (leather dresser) marries a Bhangi
(sweeper) and does not stay the night. A big charger and a sweeper riding it.
God takes care of the Dubla. A Dubla eats what he earns and leaves his funeral
to God. What will you get by robbing a Dubla? A Dubla will do no work while
a grain is left in the pot. Dogs and Dublas never lose their way. A Dubla girl
married to a Desai. (Social promotion.) When Thags are being registered the
whole village turns ascetic. When a Thag dines with a Thag the dinner consists
of high words. In the company of artisans, bow-makers, and clothiers you will
hear plenty of lies ; if you want more try the Mirai. Trustees, devils, Rajputs,
widows, and Mirasis make an outward show of friendship, but inside are full' of
deceit. The Naga's wife has a baby ; the Naga takes the medicine. (Is this a
reminiscence of the couvade f) Do not abuse the boatman until you are over the
ferry. A broken cart, an old buffalo, and a Pachada for a friend ; avoid these or
they will devour you. A Bhabha (Bhattiya) is no man's friend. They buried the
Bhattiya seven yards deep and still he did not die. Have you ever seen a dead
monkey or a dead Kuravan ? Beat not a barking dog, nor tempt the mouth of a
Tigala woman. (The Tigalas, market gardeners of Mysore, are notoriously
quarrelsome.) Two Mahatam huts and calls itself Luckville (Khairpur). Does
the son of an Irulan starve when field rats are scarce ? An acrobat's son is always
turning somersaults. The Tartar who lives in a city feels himself in prison.
Make a Waghia a Pagia (Captain), he will still cry Elkot. (The story goes that
a Waghia who had been dedicated as a child at the temple of Khandoba near
Poona rose to command a squadron of Maratha cavalry. One day his horse
shied and threw him, forcing from him the cry of " Elkot " with which the Waghias
demand alms.) He killed his own buffalo to save it from the Waghri. When a
bafis near death, it flies to the Waghri's house.
MUHAMMADANS.
The country that has no crows has no Musalmans. In a village where there
are no Musalmans the cotton cleaner calls himself Saiyad Miyan. (An impossible
326 PEOPLE OF INDIA
name made up of two distinguished titles.) What does a beef-eater know of
decent language? If girls are sold for a pie a piece don't take a Musalmani.
Can a Musalman become a Davari by going to Tirupati ? (A famous Hindu
temple in the Madras Presidency.) A Musalman ascetic's buttermilk is toddy.
Even a Qazi (Muhammadan judge) will drink spirits if he gets it for nothing.
The Afghan is faithless. Be a thief, be a thief. (Injunction of Afrldi parents
to a child while passing him backwards and forwards through a hole in a wall —
the ordinary method of burglarious entry in India.) Blood for blood. (The
sanctity of the vendetta.) The Baloch who steals gains Paradise for his ancestors
even unto seven generations. Who marries not an Ishaqi girl deserves an ass for
a bride. (The Ishaqi clan of the Bannuchi is noted for the beauty of its women.)
You may know the Chishti by his squint. (A sign of rascality.)
The MuUa preferred to be drowned rather than give his hand. (Proverb of
avarice.) The Niazi love a quarrel. A Pathan's enmity is like a dung-fire. A
saint one moment ; a devil the next ; that is the Pathan. The Pathan boy and his
brother took a short cut and fell over the cliff. (Impatience.) Hold up a rupee
and you may look at any Mohmand whether man or woman. (Venality.) The
Pathans conquer the city and the Jolahas get the benefit. (By serving them.)
The Shekh came out with a shoe in his hand ; the Pathan ran into his house.
The Pathan is hungry as soon as his hands are dry. (When he has washed his
hands after eating. The brevity of the original — hath sukha Pathan bhilkhS, —
disappears in translation.)
A Khatak is like a hen ; if you seize him slowly he sits down ; if suddenly he
clucks. Make friends with any one but a Khatak — may the devil take him 1
Though the Khatak is a good horseman yet he is a man of but one charge.
(Proverb of the Marwats, the enemies of the Khataks.) Keep a Marwat to look
after asses ; his stomach well filled and his feet well worn. (Proverb of the
Khataks.)
The drum was beating in the plains and the Bitanni were dancing in the hills.
(Stupidity.) A hundred Bitanni ate a hundred sheep. (Thriftlessness.) A dead
Kundi is better than a live one. By caste a cotton carder (Behna), by name
Nawab. The Pathans took the village and the Behnas got swollen head. A
swaggering Behna loaded a hen with his drum.
A Musalman takes back the alms he has given. (Allusion to the practice of
resuming the dowry when a married daughter dies.) Even two families of Musal-
mans cannot agree. A Musalman convert cries " Allah ! Allah ! " all day long. A
Dom his father; a Dom his grandfather; yet he talks of his noble birth. The
mother a Panhari, the father a Kanjar, and the son Mirza Sangar.
When Mir comes the Plrs retire. When rich, a Mir ; when poor, a Fakir ;
when dead, a Pir. Mirsahib is indeed of high family with his smooth cheeks and
his empty stomach. Mirsahib ! Times are hard, you must hold on your turban
with both hands.
When two hearts agree what can the Qazi do? The Red-book (Qazi) up
and spoke, " Oilman, what made the ox fight ? The oil cake you gave him,
so I must have the ox and a fine into the bargain." The Hindu who is hauled
up before a Qazi does not find it a feast. A Qazi's judgment (Proverb of
injustice). " Qazi, why so thin?" " The city's cares wear me within." The fowl
killed by the Qazi is lawful meat. The Qazi's bitch may give pups anywhere.
When the Qazi's beard is on fi.re he must put it out himself. When the Qazi's
bitch died the whole town was at the funeral ; when the Qazi himself died
not a soul followed his coffin. Though a Qazi become a saint he will still
have a strain of the devil. To trust a Qazi is to court misfortune. The will
of God but the act of a Qazi. You get nothing from a Qazi save by force or
fraud.
APPENDIX I 327
If you are well off you are a Shekh ; if not you are a Jolaha. Don't put a peg
into a sack or a Shekh into a regiment. (Low-caste converts make bad soldiers.)
A Shekh can deceive even a crow.
A Turk, a parrot, and a hare ; these three are never grateful. Do not
provoke a hungry Turk ; he will hunt you to death. The sons of a slave-girl are a
faithless brood.
The true Musalmans lie buried in their graves and their faith lies buried in
their books. Where there are Musalmans there is population. There should be
no reserve among Musalmans. (Addressed to one who declines an invitation to a
meal.) The love of Musalmans is the friendship of a snake. A Musalraan, a
wasp, and a parrot are no man's friends ; in time of difficulty they will turn and
sting or bite. Sesamiim, molasses and the love of a Musalman are sweet at first
and afterwards bitter. (Allusion to ease of divorce among Musalmans.)
Half a doctor and a danger to life : half a MuUa and a danger to faith. You
love like the MuUa, who feeds fowls to eat them. A real Miyan is a Miyan indeed,
but some Miyans are Pinjaras (cotton teasers). When the Miyanji (family tutor)
is at the door it is a bad look-out for the dog. A Miyanji's walk is only as far as
the mosque. (He is always begging, either at people's houses or at the mosque.)
A farthing's worth of soap makes the Miyan a Babu. Since when has the Bibi
become a Brahmani ? (Allusion to the looseness of the marriage tie among
Muhammadans.)
Calls himself a Saiyad and will steal even a nose-stud. A Bohra is never
straight ; he will cringe to you when he wants something and cut you when he has
got it.
When salt loses its savour then will the Mopla cease to cheat.
A Pashtun will go to hell through his own self-will. To see a MuUa is to see
misfortune.
The camel calf of uncle Achak. (The reference is to certain Achakzais who
mistook the remains of a Hindu who had been cremated outside the city gates
for a camel calf roasted by some robbers and made a hearty meal of it. The
proverb is aimed at their ignorance and stupidity and may be regarded as the
Baloch analogue of the story of the Thames bargees who ate the puppy pie under
Marlow bridge.) The Achakzai is a fellow who will steal an empty flour-bag. A
■wicked son of Achak — if you see him, fly from him. If the father makes friends
with Achak, the son should not follow suit. The Kakar besmeared with filth — if
you see him hit him with a stick : expel him from the mosque and you will save
trouble. A Masezai has no hope of God ; and God has no hope of a Masezai.
The hills are the forts of the Baloch : better are they than double-storied
houses with wind-sails : his steed is a pair of white sandals : his brother is his
sharp sword. The beauty of the night is in the stars : and that of the desert in the
Baloch. Though a Jam be a Jam, yet he is Jadgal by descent ; and therefore not
the equal of the princely race of Baloch. A Baloch with his trousers full of wind.
(Referring to his boastfulness and the wide trousers that he. wears.) All the
sandal-wearing Baloch are brothers. (Illustrating their democratic spirit.) Whose
friend is the black snake of a Gichki ? his words are sweet, but his heart is poison.
When all is said and done a Gichki is a Hindu at bottom. (Gichkis are supposed
to be Hindu immigrants from India.) One Sanni and seven chiefs. On this side
sixty and on that side fifty : all shared the fate of the chameleon. (The story is
that a boy of the Burfat tribe chased a chameleon in the house of a Kalmati
and killed it there. The wife of the Kalmati complained to her husband that
the sacred right of sanctuary had been violated and he killed three Burfat boys in
revenge. Thus arose a blood feud, lasting a hundred years, in the course of which
sixty Kalmatis and fifty Burfats were killed ) The precipice of the Kalmati.
(Foolish pride. On his way from Pasni to Kech a Kalmati asked the road from a
328 PEOPLE OF INDIA
stranger who pointed out the track. The Kalmati, however, insisted on going
straight on into the hills, with the result that his camel broke its neck. Thereupon
he and the stranger fought to the death and were both slain.)
The Kulanchi's sheep and the Med's cauldron. (Habit of exaggeration. A
Kulanchi told a Med of a huge mountain sheep which he had seen standing on a
high hill and grazing in a distant valley. The Med retorted by describing a
cauldron being made in Bombay on which forty thousand coppersmiths were
employed, and when asked by the Kulanchi how such a thing was possible, replied :
In what other utensil could your sheep be cooked ?) Wisdom has begged in vain
for mercy from the Rinds : and for decency from the Meds. The black-faced Meds
are like tamarisk sparks without even a glow of courage. (Tamarisk embers soon
die down.) The Med's livelihood depends upon the wind : and his death comes
from the wind. The Med busy on his voyage : and his wife busy with her lover.
(The Meds are engaged in sea-faring.) The Mir of the Rinds and the throne of
Delhi. (Democratic spirit. According to Baloch traditions, vijhen Mir Chakar, the
Rind, took Delhi in the 15th century and sat upon the throne, his brethren, jealous
of his position, sat all round, on the arms and elsewhere, and one of them not to be
outdone, climbed upon the canopy, when the whole fell down and he was impaled by
the spike on the top.)
Whose friend is the misguided Kurgal? he is the striped snake who bit the
Prophet : he is always coveting other people's property : he even quarrels for it
with his mother. {Kurgal is a term used among the Jats of the plains for the
Brahuis. It is possibly a corruption of Kurd-gal, i.e. Kurd folk. The last line
refers to the tribal custom by which Brahui women are excluded from inheritance.)
If you have never seen ignorant hobgoblins and mountain-imps, come and look at
the Brahui. What people are these? 'Ca^xx good is evil. (A play upon the Brahui
word Sharr, which means good in Brahui but evil in Arabic.) The Brahuis and
self-will. The Brahuis are the tail of a dog.
A Mengal's roast. (The Mengals eat half-cooked meat and this expression is
used of any immature plan.)
Man, are you a Nichari ? You may not win, but you will not lose. (Slimness.)
One asked a jackass : " Have you any relations .' " It replied : " The Sassoli
boasts of being my cousin.'' (Ignorance.)
Talk of loans in Zahri : and the dead will rise. You a Zarakzai, and I a
Zarakzai : who will light the fire ?
A Meman will be faithless though he read seventy Qurans. (Meman is the
local name of the Khojas.)
When the Lori gets up, he says : " O God, give me a funeral or wedding
to-day." (The Loris perform duties connected with these ceremonies.)
The face of a MuUa but heart of a butcher. The Miyan's (Mahomedan
zamindar) whole stock of wealth is a mat and a tooth brush. Even if the
Meman (Mahomedan shopkeeper) goes to Mecca for pilgrimage he will steal
a pair of scales and weights. When the Meman becomes a lunatic, he throws
his clothes on his own relations. The Miyan is fit for the grave and the bibi, his
wife, is fit for the bridal bed. The Khatija enjoys the earnings, her daughter bears
the blows. (Sale of girls among Mahomedans.) The Jat's (Mahomedan culti-
vator's) age is 2^ kamlis or blankets. (Measured by the time it takes him to
change his blanket — dirty habits.) If the Jat peasant is educated, heaven will be
in a fix.
The Fakir pockets the alms and the monkey gets but blows. The degenerate
Moghul beats the ladies of his harem. When the Moghuls come the Persian
language is forgotten. (The local people do not speak Persian in their presence
because they cannot speak it pure.)
A Musalman takes time to bathe and a Hindu takes time to eat his dinner.
APPENDIX I 329
A Meman and a fish go against the stream. Miyan and Mahadeo will never
agree.
If Miyan and Bibi are willing what can the Qazi do ? When the Miyan broke
his stick, the Bibi broke the jar of water. (When beaten she broke the pot out of
revenge.) A Miyan's carriage ! the yoke tied up with palm fibre : he will stop at
the nearest grog-shop. A Miyan's friendship will last till he reaches your gate !
Miyan returns from work and his Bibi combs his beard ! Miyan dies, and the Mas-
jid is lit up. Miyan licks the floor of the Masjid and the Plr wants goats. Miyan
licks the lamps in the Masjid and his wife wants dainties. Although Miyan falls
his legs are up. A Miyan was not well and drank bhang (hemp). (Confusion worse
confounded.) Miyan goes on striking and cuts down the corn. (Recklessness.)
Miyan a pigmy, and his beard a foot long. Miyan a seer, but Bibi a seer and a
quarter. (The gray mare the better horse.) A Miyan has killed a crow, and
coming to the town he shouts out that he killed a tiger. The Miyan's mind after a
prostitute and the Blbi's mind after the cooking pots. If the Miyan has to go to
the north, he will say he goes to the south. Think him mad who tries to be wiser
than the Miyan. The Miyan can beat his Bibi (wife) with shoes if he only has
them on his feet. (Poverty and pride.)
The Miyan's mare went only as far as the boundary of the village. The Miyan's
beard on fire, and the Bibi thinks he is warming himself. A Miyan's cat. (A
poor and meek person.) The Miyan cannot get it, and the Bibi does not like it.
(Sour grapes.) " What are you doing, oh Miyan ? " "I have not a minute's
leisure and yet I do not earn even a/zV." " Why do you cry, Miyan ?" " My wife
died to-day." " Why do you laugh, Miyan ? " "I got another wife to-day." "Get
up, Miyan ! " He will say, " Give me your hand (to raise me)." Miyan goes to
Mecca, Bibi goes to Malwa. Miyan a fop and Bibi does the dusting. A Miyan
will live anyhow, but how will the Bibi live ?
Every one strokes the MuUa's cow. The horse kicked him off, but the MuUa
boasted of his riding.
PROVINCIAL CHARACTERISTICS.
Never make friends with a Deccani ; he is as false as a latrine is filthy. Put
not your faith in a three-cornered pagri (turban). (Gujarat proverbs of the
Marathas.)
A Dravidian's nose-holding. (Circumlocution. A Dravidian is said to hold his
nose for ceremonial purposes by putting his hand round the back of his neck.) A
prosperous Telugu is no good to any one.
The fool of a Gujarati, kick him first and then he may understand you {cf. the
similar saying about the Chattisgarhi cited above).
For houses hurdles of maddrj for hedges heaps of withered thorn ; millet for
bread, horse peas for pulse ; this is thy kingdom. Raja of Marwar. (Aimed at
Marwari money-lenders who pretend to be great people in their own country.)
I have seen the land of Bengal where teeth are red and faces black. (Referring
to the dark complexion of Bengalis and their supposed fondness for chewing betel.)
If a Bengali is a man what is a devil? The Dacca Bengalis have not so much as
an earthen pot between them. Bengal is the home of magic and the women are
full of witchery. An Eastern donkey with a Western bray. (Aimed at the Babus
who affect European manners.) A hungry Bengali cries " Rice, rice ! " Twelve
Bengahs cannot cut off a goat's ear. (Gujarat proverb of the weakness and
cowardice of Bengalis.)
A pagri (turban) on his head and nakedness below, the Assamese wishes to
lead the way. (The vanity of a pauper.) The worthless has three wives, the
worthy one. (Undeserved luxury.)
330 PEOPLE OF INDIA
COMPARISONS BETWEEliT CASTES.
The MuUa, the Bhat, the Brahman, the Dom; these four were not born on
giving day. When a Jat is well off he kicks up a row ; when a buffalo is gorged
he refuses to plough ; when a Khatri gets rich he still cringes ; when a Brahman
has money he quarrels. A Jat, a son-in-law, a nephew, a shepherd, and a goldsmith
are always ungrateful. A Khatri woman brings forth sons always ; a Brahman
woman only sometimes. (Possibly aimed at the practice of female infanticide
imputed to the Khatris). Brahmans are mad? to eat, Bbavaiyas to play and sing,
Kolis to commit robbery, and widows to mourn. A meddlesome Brahman gives
advice ; a guileless Baniya gives short weight. Brahman and Jati ; mother-in-law
and daughter-in-law ; wheat and the mill ; a modest woman and a prostitute —
none of these agree. You can rob a Brahman but beware of a Grasia. (He will
show fight.) The field belongs to the Miyan, not to a Brahman widow. The
hungry Brahman sets the village on fire ; the hungry Koli (his accomplice) plunders
the houses. The Kunbi died from seeing a ghost, the Brahman from wind in the
stomach, the goldsmith from bile. (The first is superstitious : the second over-
eats himself; the third sits too long over his fire.) A Brahman begs, a Kunbi
ploughs ; after all old things are best. Maharudra (Siva in his terrible aspect)
trembles at the sight of a black Brahman and a fair Sudra. A black Brahman, a
fair Siidra, an undersized Musalman, a ghar-jamai, an adopted son — all birds
of a feather. (A ghar-jamai is a son-in-law who lives with his father-in-law and is
supported by him.) A dark Brahman, a fair Chiihra, a woman with a beard
— these three are contrary to nature. Do not cross a river with a black Brahman
or a fair Chamar. Trust not a black Brahman, nor a fair Holeya. (One of the
lowest castes in Southern India supposed, like the Chandals in Bengal, to be
descended from Siidra fathers and Brahman mothers.) The Brahman works for
fhepijida (rice cake offered to the dead), the Holeya works for drink.
A Brahman met a barber ; " God be with you " said the one, but the other
showed his looking-glass. (Each expecting a fee for services rendered.) Laughing
Brahmans, coughing thieves, and illiterate Kayasths are the destroyers of their
race. There are three careless ones — the washerman, the barber, and the tailor.
Pipe, tobacco, courtesans, the Gujar and the Jat, all are one as in the race from
Father Jagannath. (At the festival of Jagannath there is no distinction of castes.)
There is no escape from a Baniya's guile and a Jogi's curse. A Brahman for
minister, a Bhat for favourite, and the Raja's fate is sealed. Baniyas improve
their property ; Jats ruin theirs ; Doms, poets and Bhats live by flattery. The
Gujar finds joy in the steppe ; the mendicant in the Dhak tree ; the Brahman in
rice and milk. (The Gujars are herdsmen ; the Dhdk is a sacred tree ; and
Brahmans are proverbially greedy.) Better a barren field than a Gujar ; a desert
than a Mina. The Brahman is lord of the water ; the Rajput lord of the land ;
the Kayasth lord of the pen ; and the Khatri lord of the back, i.e., a coward. The
youngest among Brahmans, the eldest among Mukuvans (fishermen), are the
drudges of the family.
The Chasa (cultivator) goes to plough ; the Brahman goes to sleep. Loot the
Baniya if you meet him, but let the Pathan go on his way (or you will catch a
Tartar). Beware of these three— a goldsmith, a tailor, and a village clerk. The
goldsmith steals gold and the tailor cloth ; the poor carpenter has only a log to
shape, and can steal nothing. The goldsmith's acid and the tailor's tag. (Proverb
of delay ; the one tells you that the ornament is ready, all but the cleaning with
acid ; the other that the clothes have been made, but the tags have to be sewn on.)
The goldsmith, the tailor, the Baniya will cheat even their own father. The Teli
knows all about oil seeds ; the Shimpi (tailor) all about lies ; the village watchman
all about thieves ; the Lingayat all about everything.
APPENDIX I 331
Vellala chief among cultivators ; Kallar chief among thieves. Trust not a
black Brahman nor a fair Pariah. Like a Pariah and a Brahman (oil and vinegar).
The tricks of a goldsmith and a weaver are nothing to those of a washerman.
The washerman knows who is poor in the village ; the goldsmith knows whose
ornaments are of pure gold. The goldsmith and the Chetty. (Both rascals.)
Only an albino is fairer than a Khatri ; only an adulterer is sharper than a Kayasth.
Qazis, Kasbis, Kasais, and Kayasths — the four bad K's. Kayasths, Khatris and
cocks support their kin ; Brahmans, Doms, and Nais destroy theirs. Qazis,
crows, and Kayasths stand by their kindred. Ahirs, Gareris (shepherds) and
Pasis (fowlers) — a poisonous crew. A Dhobi's stone and a potter's donkey ; both
get plenty of beating. The Rajput and the Jat are like bows made of pestles ;
they will break but never bend. If a Tamboli (betel-seller) does the oilman's work
he will set the house on fire. The oilman's cheeks are smooth and shining ; the
grain parcher's burnt brown. Babhans, dogs, and Bhats are always at war with
their kin. Seven Chamars are not as mean as one Babhan, and seven Babhans
are not as mean as one Noniyar Baniya. Only the Naus (barbers) and the Kewats
help their own caste ; the others merely pretend. Oh King sneeze ! let go the
Brahman and keep the Jati ; and should you meet a Baniya never let him off. A
Dhobi is better than a Kayasth ; a Sonar is better than a cheat ; a dog is better
than a deity ; and a jackal better than a Pandit.
The Gareri got drunk when he sarw the Ahir in liquor. Ahir, Dafali, Dhobi,
Dom — these are the four castes that sing. A prodigal Baniya, a weak King, a
Baidya with an ignorant son, a silent Bhat, an unclean harlot, these, saith Ghag,
will come to no good. There be three that dance in other people's houses — the
Kayasth, the Baidya, and the dalal. (Profit by the misfortunes of others. The
dalal is the lawyer's tout who promotes litigation and flourishes exceedingly in
modern India.) The Baniya can trade; others can only imitate. The oilman
trades without capital ; the grain parcher's stock is a broken pot. When the salt
dealer's salt is upset he gains ; when the oilman spills his oil he loses. (The salt
picks up sand, the oil soaks into the ground.) The Baniya's speech is polished,
the Kumhar's is rough, the Sikligar (cutler) is honest and the Chamar a rogue.
Dine with a Brahman and Jogi and let a Karar make the fourth. (The two former
have a reputation as gourmets, the latter is said to be good company.) A Dom, a
Brahman, and a goat are of no use in time of need. A Mali wants clouds, a Dhobi
sun, a slanderer will talk, and a thief will hold his tongue. In no man's land one
makes friends with Gujars and Gaddis.
Provoke not the Meo at his ferry or the Karar in his shop ; if you beard the
Jat in his field he will break your head. When a buffalo is full she refuses oil-cake ;
when a Baniya is well off he gives time to his debtors ; when a Jat is prosperous he
begins to quarrel ; when your banker is in a bad way he fastens upon you.
Better have no friends at all than take up with an Afghan, a Kamboh or a
rascally Kashmiri. The crow, the Kamboh and the Kalal cherish their kin ; the
Jat, the buffalo and the crocodile devour their kin. Kayasths, birds, and pandits
(Deccanis) befriend their kin ; Baniyas, dogs and Brahmans are hostile to
their kin.
When the Jat prospers he shuts up the path (by ploughing over it) ; when the
Karar (money- lender) prospers, he shuts up the Jat. Jats, Bhats, caterpillars and
widows — all these should be kept hungry ; if they eat their fill they do harm.
Hope, dice, a courtesan, Thag, Thakar, Sonar, monkey, Turk and Kalal — these
nine are no good. Give me an Arain for work, and give the Khatik a cow. A
cucumber is not a vegetable ; a king (one-stringed guitar) is not a musical instru-
ment ; a Labana is not a Hindu, and a Meo cannot be a friend.
Bribe a Kayasth, feed a Brahman, water paddy and betel, but kick a low caste
man. You may know a good Kayasth by his pen ; a good Rajput by his moustache ;
332 PEOPLE OF INDIA
and a good Baidya by his searching medicine. A Turk wants toddy, a bullock
wants grain, a Brahman wants mangoes, and a Kayasth wants an appointment.
If you cannot ruin yourself by keeping a Brahman servant, taking money from
a Kasai, or begetting too many daughters, you will do it by going to law with
bigger men.
The Jat, the GQjar, the Ahir and the Gola ; these four are much of a muchness.
All castes are God's creatures, but three castes are ruthless — the Ahir, the Baniya,
the whore ; when they get a chance they have no shame.
When the tax collector is a Jat, the money-lender a Brahman, and the ruler of
the land a Baniya, these are signs of God's wrath. A barber, a dog, and a hawk
are useless when full ; a money-lender, a bullock, and a king are useless when
empty. To the wine merchant early ; to the butcher late. (In the former case
you get fresh toddy, in the latter you avoid yesterday's remnants which the
butcher mixes up with his first sales on the next day.) The Mali waters the
jasmine ; the waterman looks for a well ; and the Parsi priest peers round to see
if a rich man is dead. Kachhi is not a good caste, there is no virtue in a Mali, and
the Lodha is a poor creature who ploughs with tears in his eyes. The Lodha is
very hasty, the Kunbi a good farmer, the Brahman a great liar who begs his bread
from door to door. Four Lodhas and silly talk ; four Kachhis and sensible talk.
The three tufted ones (Marwaris), the red-faced ones (Europeans), and the cactus
plant cannot live without increasing. Marwaris, crows, and Parsi liquor shops you
see wherever you go.
CASTE IN aENEBAL.
A highborn man mourns the loss of his caste as he would the loss of his nose.
The caste killeth and the caste maketh alive. (Referring to the effect of the deci-
sions of caste tribunals.) When plates are interchanged. (When different castes
intermarry ; proverb of the impossible.) Caste springs from actions not from birth.
The Vaisyas and Sudras must have come first and it was from them that Brahmans
and Kshatriyas were made.
Love laughs at caste distinctions. Let your love be as a Hindu wife ; with you
in life and with you in death.
Having drunk water from his hands, it is foolish to ask about his caste. (Water
is the most potent vehicle of ceremonial pollution. Moral — the least said the
soonest mended.) When on a journey you should act like a Sudra and take food
from any one.
A low-caste man is like a musk rat ; if you smell him you remember it. His
father pounded parched rice ; his grandfather coriander seed. In old days men
looked to caste, now they look to money. (Aimed at modern Indian match-
making.)
As the ore is like the mine, so a child is like its caste. Scholars adorn a caste.
As caste hates caste, so does one agnate hate another. A slipper in the mouth of
caste cost money to all. (One man's offence dishonours the whole caste.) The
speech fits the caste as the peg fits the hole. (Refined language is a sign of good
caste.) Castes may differ, virtue is everywhere the same. Every uncle says that
his caste is the best.
Though your caste is low, your crime is none the less. Nowadays money is
caste. Half-castes are the scum of the earth.
" I have sold my limbs, not my caste." (Supposed to be said by a servant whose
master has asked him to do something injurious to his caste.)
The Hindu gods have fled to Dwarka ; the Musalman saints to Mecca ; under
British rule the Dheds shove you about. (The Dheds are a low caste of Bombay
whose touch is pollution.) Rakhals and Chasas handle the ammonite. (This and
APPENDIX I 333
the preceding proverb refer to the decline of religion in modern times.) The Pandit
reads his scriptures and the MuUa his Quran ; men make a thousand shows, yet
find not God. Spectacles for the blind, sweets for the sick, a Parsi at a Hindu's
table. (A Hindu cannot entertain a Parsi.) Musalmans go mad at tabuts (the
miniature tombs carried in procession atthe Muharram festival), women at marriages,
Hindus at the Holi. To the Hindu Ram is dear, to the Musalman Rahim ; they
hate with a deadly hatred, but know not the reason why. The Hindu bows down to
stones (idols), the Musalman worships saints ; but the Parsi's religion is pure as
Ganges water. (Parsi proverb of the freedom of their religion from the stain of
idolatry.) A superstitious Parsi woman offers a cocoanut at the Holi. (Illustrating
the common tendency to observe othef people's festivals.) An ass is unclean ; a
chotliwala is no friend. (Parsi proverb: chotli\% the Gujarati name for the scalp-
lock worn by Hindus.) A Musalman takes time to bathe ; a Hindu takes time to
eat (Muhammadan saying).
APPENDIX II
MAPS OF CASTES
Note, — In these Maps the four Sub-Provinces of Bengal have been shown separately, and
Sind has been dealt with apart from the rest of the Bombay Presidency.
[These Maps have not been prepared for the Census of 191 1. They have been reprinted
in the present edition, as, with some minor differences, they represent the caste
distribution as it prevails at present.]
APPENDIX II
335
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336
PEOPLE OF INDIA
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APPENDIX II
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APPENDIX II
339
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343
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393
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X
APPt
SUMMARY OF
TURKO-IR^
WESTERN PUNJAB, NORTH-WESTERN FRONTIER PR
DIMENSIONS OF HEAD.
PI
TI(
I
1
Length (Glabel-
Breadth
C
1
LO-OCCIPITAI.).
(Extreme).
1
Name of Tribe
Language or
Locality.
o
OR Caste.
Dialect.
•i
S
s
a g
9
1-
1
i3
.1 ' f
<
'3
<
l;l
<
WESTERN PUr
7
Nagar
Burusharki .
Nagar
190-7
198
180
143-8
151
142
75-4
8o
Pathan
Western Pun-
jabi
North- Western
Punjab
185-2
203
165
141-7
152
133
76-5
6
Kafir .
Ashkun
Kafirstan .
194-6
199
191
149-6
160
143
76-9
9
Hunza
Burusharki .
HuNza
192-8
200
181
152-0
165
144
78-8
6o
Baloch (mixed)
Western Pun-
jabi
Western Punjab .
179-2
197
155
143-5
152
133
8o-o
200
Hazara
Persian
Afghanistan
179-6
202
160
152-8
i68
140
85-0
58*
Lori .
Brahui and
Gypsy (Mo-
kaki)
Quetla and Saruna
177-6
192
158
139-5
152
130
78-5
100*
Makhiani (Pathan)
Pashto
Harnai, Thai Cho-
■tiali
i8i-o
200
163
142-1
159
130
78-5
59*
Wanechi (Pathan)
Do. .
Babihan, Thai
Chotiali
178-1
195
161
141-2
155
126
79-2
76*
Dehwar
Dehwari
Mastung
179-4
200
165
142-2
155
130
79-2
100*
Jat . . .
Jadgali
Sibi .
177-8
196
160
141-9
155
130
79-8
100
Pani (Pathan)
Pashto
Do. .
183-9
198
168
147-4
158
139
8o-i
271
Baloch
Balochi
Marri and Bugti
Hills and Kacchi
181-8
205
161
146-2
159
131
80-4
24*
Dehwar
Dehwari
Kalat.
178-5
183
168
144-4
160
133
80-8
100
Achakzai (Pathan)
Pashto
Chaman, Quetta
Pishin
187-7
210
175
152-4
171
140
8i-i
48*
Mir Jats
Jatki .
Sibi .
i8o-i
200
162
146-4
158
135
81-2
198
BrahCi
Brahui.
Sarawan Country
182-0
197
166
148-4
165
135
8l-5
200
Dehwar
Dehwari
Mastung
179-4
198
165
.^146-6
159
131
81-7
112
Kakar (Pathan) .
Pashto
Quetta and Zhob
184-7
202
170
15^-4
169
140
8i-g
79*
Med .
Makrani Ba-
lochi
Pasni, Gwadur,
Chabar and
Ormara
181-4
200
170
148-9
160
136
82-0
77*
Mengal (Brahui) .
Brahui
Saruna
179-5
190
161
148-7
162
130
82-f
100
Tarin (Pathan) .
Pashto
Pishin
182-1
199
165
150-9
170
138
82-t
13
Ghulam (Slaves) .
Balochi
Baluchistan .
179-0
188
170
150-2
159
141
83-c
33*
Chhutta
Jadgali
Hinidan Levy
Tracts
Kila do.
1 76- 1
190
162
150-2
162
140
85-2
35*
Bandija
Do. .
174-6
190
162
152-0
162
144
87-c
* Mr. B. 1
NDIX III
395
ME A S UREMEN TS.
MAN TYPE.
)VINCE AND BALUCHISTAN. (In order of Cephalic Index.)
OPOR-
NS OF
BAD.
DIMENSIONS OF
trOSE.
PROPOR-
TIONS OF
NOSE.
QTiTirni?
RELATIVE PROMINENCE
OF ROOT OF NOSE.
FHALIC
DEX.
Height.
Breadth.
Nasai Index.
Average
Dimensions.
Orbito-Nasal
Index.
B
a
e
"y.
a
1
>
S
3
a
1
1
ii 1
1 1
1
i
s
s
'5
i
i
<
1
1
e
.1
B
is
1
>
<
i
a
Ill
ca M 2
0 g^
1
<
i
1
a
1
•3
S
lAB & N.-W. F. PROVINCE.
79
87
72
69
58-4
50-0
64
59
52
45
37"0
34-2
40
40
35
30
63-3
68-4
69
80
55
56
1648
1687
1690
1866
1606
1562
103-0
115-9
116-8
135-9
II3-3
II7-1
124
131
108
108
82
84
95
73
76
72
54-1
53'2
49-4
58
62
58
52
50
45
37"3
38-5
34" 3
39
40
40
36
37
30
68-9
72-3
69-4
7?
78
■87
64
65
57
1671
1708
1662
1738
1800
1803
1560
1648
1524
I07-O
109-0
113-8
124-3
123-7
134-2
116-1
113-4
117-9
Il8
119
129
"3
109
110
99
74
46-3
56
37
37'3
45
31
8o-5
III
63
1684
1806
1525
1 14-0
126-8
111-2
120
103
&LUCHISTAN.
90
71
56-4
66
44
35-1
44
26
62-2
85
48
• •
98-7
119-5
I2I-0
133
105
87
65
57-4
64
46
34-0
43
29
59-2
78
48
99"3
124-0
124-8
134
113
89
70
56-9
66
48
33-7
45
28
59-2
87
47
••
99-2
I2i-8
122-7
133
114
88
92
90
90
68
70
75
70
54'9
56-1
50-9
52-4
68
%
61
45
44
43
45
34" I
35-4
37-2
38-0
40
46
43
46
28
25
32
32
62-1
63-1
73"o
72-5
80
84
90
94
47
42
55
57
1677
1678
1852
1850
1560
1506
98-3
98-0
II2-0
II2-8
119-2
122-5
132-0
133-6
121-2
125-0
117-8
118-4
133
143
126
128
107
104
111
111
88
91
73
74
59-5
55-3
70
63
53
48
34-7
37-8
40
47
30
31
58-3
68-3
67
90
48
55
1722
1862
1602
1 00-0
116-4
122-2
136-4
122-2
117-1
133
125
"3
111
96
92
91
90
92
73
72
72
74
72
57'3
5i'3
48-4
53-4
55-9
86
65
59
61
68
48
41
42
.46
44
35-4
36-4
36-0
37"2
38-1
45
45
45
44
46
30
30
30
32
30
6i-7
70-9
74' 3
69-6
68-1
98
88
92
40
55
60
60
53
1659
1642
1683
1794
1808
1882
1526
1488
1570
99-6
1 10-9
107-6
II4-9
ii7'3
124-2
130-9
127-0
134-0
149-4
124-6
118-0
ii8-o
116-6
127-3
137
128
130
124
140
111
110
109
107
"3
93
93
88
95
70
74
57-8
54-1
51-2
6o-o
68
62
56
70
41
45
46
50
34'4
36-7
39-3
35-2
43
49
46
40
30
30
35
30
59-5
67-8
76-7
58-6
83
86
92
71
50
54
66
50
1683
1642
1928
1706
1533
1526
io8-o
114-7
109-3
111-2
130-3
133-6
126-6
138-3
120-6
116-4
115-8
124-3
135
127
123
134
103
III
no
III
94
81
59-4
70
54
35-0
42
28
58-9
71
47
■•
• •
II5-I
141-2
122-6
139
no
Gupte, F.z.s.
396
APPEN
SUMMARY OF i
INDO-ARY
PUNJAB AND RAJPUTANA.
j2
Name of Tribe
OK Caste.
Language or
Dialect.
Locality.
DIMENSIONS OF HEAD.
PRO
TIo^
HF
1
Length (Glabel-
Lo- occipital).
Breadth
(Extreme). *
Cep
Ik
O
1
1
s
<
S
a
%
s
1
S
>
<
1
%
a
1
c
S
1
<
19
Machhi
Punjabi .
Punjab .
i88-4
196
182
136-3
147
-J27
72-3
120
Rajput
Rajasthani
Rajpulana
192-5
213
180
139-4
151
127
72-4
13
Gujar
Punjabi .
Punjab .
192-6
205
185
139-6
148
133
72-4
27
Arora
Ditto .
Ditto .
190-7
206
177
138-6
149
130
72-6
8o
Sikh(Jat) .
Ditto .
Ditto .
190-2
203
172
138-4
152
127
72-7
100
Meo .
Rajasthani
Rajputana
189-5
204
178
138-4
147
126
73-0
100
Mina Zamindar .
Ditto .
Ditto .
192-4
207
174
140-6
155
132
73-0
IOC
MinaChaukidar .
Ditto .
Ditto .
189-9
207
176
I39-I
150
130
73-2
8o
Chuhra
Punjabi .
Punjab .
186-7
200
171
137-1
152
127
73-4
60
Khatri
Ditto .
Ditto .
185-7
200
172
137-5
150
128
74-0
33
Awai>
Ditto .
Ditto .
188-8
201
■175
140-5
147
130
74-4
IPIX III
itIEASUREMENTS.
fl\N TYPE.
. (Jn order of Cephalic Index.)
IPOR-
« OF
DIMENSIONS OF
NOSE.
PROPOR-
TIONS OF
NOSE.
STATURE.
RELATIVE PROMINENCE
OF ROOT OF NOSE.
fSALIC
Height. ,
Breadth.
Nasal Index.
0
Orbito-Nasal
Index.
1
1
a
0^
CQ
>
<
1
S
E
S
i
1
1
1
>
<
'i
1
<
1
a
a
■a
s
<
a
a
X
a
a
a
76
68
49-8
53
46
34-9
41
31
70*0
82
62
1699
1828
1600
II2-I
131-0
II6-8
125
no
81
64
51-2
61
43
36-7
44
31
71-6
91
53
1748
1924
1654
108-5
128-0
117-9
129
107
78
68
50-3
55
47
33-7
39
31
66-9
78
60
1703
1778
1650
II2'7
130-6
II5-8
123
III
81
67
49-7
54
47
35-4
42
30
71-2
81
60
1658
1803
1574
III-5
129-5
II6-I
121
no
81
66
50-1
61
45
34-5
41
30
68-8
85
56
I716
1905
1625
II3-6
132-5
II6-6
125
no
81
67
50-4
60
43
38-1
46
32
75-5
92
59
1690
1852
1536
io6'4
121-2
113-9
123
107
83
67
51-2
59
41
38-1
44
32
74"4
91
61
1713
1850
1606
io8-o
124-4
II5-I
123
107
81
61
5I-0
59
44
37-8
44
32
74-2
96
61
1703
1820
1570
108-5
125-4
115-5
125
107
82
68
48-0
56
45
36-1
45
31
75-2
94
60
1666
1803
1524
112-2
129-4
115-3
123
108
86
66
48-8
58
44
35-7
42
30
73-1
95
59
1662
1803
1574
111-9
126-6
113-1
122
106
80
70
50-7
57
44
34'9
39
30
68-8
79
55
1706
1828
1600
113-0
131-3
1 10- 1
125
no
APP
SUMMARY OF
SCYTHO-D
BOMBAY AND COORC
&
DIMENSIONS OF HEAD.
t
Length (Glabel-
Breadth
1
LO- occipital).
(Extreme).
o
Name of Tribe
OR Caste.
Language or
Dialect.
Locality.
8
2;
bo
1
a
1
%
s
a
% ■
170
i
1
a
1
1
s
1
100
Deshasth Brahman
Maralhi .
Poena, Satara,
185-4
198
142-7
157
131
7
Ahmednagar
100
Mahar
Marathi .
Poona
i8i-6
195
165
140-0
152
129
7
100
Kokanasth Brah-
man (Chitpavan)
Marathi ,
Bombay and
Poona
186-4
202
170
144-2
155
122
7
100
Kunbi
Marathi .
Poona
I So- 1
197
165
139-4
156
130
7
lOO
Koli(Son) .
Koli Dialect .
Thana .
185-0
201
171
143-5
159
134
"i
I GO
Maratha
Marathi .
Poona
181-3
195
166
I42-I
158
127
t
lOO
Shenvi Brahman .
Marathi .
Bombay city .
186-2
201
170
I47-I
160
132
f
127
Vania .
Gujerati .
Ahmedabad
183-0
202
170
145-2
156
135
lOO
Nagar Brahman .
Gujerati .
Ahmedabad
184-4
202
151
I47-I
166
132
100
Prabhu
Marathi .
Satara, Poona,
Bombay (city),
Thana
184-2
198
170
147-2
158
131
32
Coorg *
Kodagu .
Coorg
184-0
195
168
147-0
154
138
Dravidian For
Katkari
Katkari .
Thana .
178-8
199 160 133-0 143 126 ',
* T. H. He
^DIX III
397
"iEA SUREMENTS.
WIDIAN TYPE.
(In order of Cephalic Index.)
OPOR-
OHS OF
JEAD. .
DIMENSIONS OF
NOSE.
PROPOR-
TIONS OF
NOSE.
STATURE.
RELATIVE PROMINENCE
OF ROOT OF NOSE.
PHALIC
MDEX.
Height.
Breadth.
Nasal Index.
II
SB
1
1
Orbito-Nasal
Index.
1
a
•>
be
2
>
B
3
S
s
1
s
s
2
%
<
a
1
•a
1
1
<
a
a
3
s
■a
i
<
a
a
3
a
HO
If
(B«.
ffl
<
a
3
.1
•A
s
e
3
a
5
88
68
48-9
56
42
38-8
44
34
79-3
98
69
1642
1750
i486
II6-6
135-6
1 16-2
127
105
88
69
47-2
53
41
38-7
46
33
81-9
96
70
1634
1792
1490
113-9
130-6
1 1 4-6
125
108
85
70
49-3
57
41
37-8
43
31
76-6
93
60
1655
1813
1512
Ii6'0
134-2
H5-6
124
103
92
69
47-9
54
40
37-9
42
33
79-2
93
67
1600
1776
1420
113-2
129-5
114-5
124
104
185
71
49-6
57
42
37*9
47
31
76-4
93
62
1601
1760
1482
114-5
129-5
113-1
122
104
89
69
47-8
57
38
38-3
48
33
8o'i
108
66
1632
1770
1476
114-9
133-1
115-8
132
107
92
71
50-3
59
42
37-6
43
33
74-7
95
63
1648
1774
1481
112-9
129-5
114-7
124
104
88
70
49'9
59
35
37-8
49
31
75" 7
10
61
1612
1732
1489
II3-I
131-5
1 16-2
128
108
90
71
50-7
61
44
37-1
44
31
73' I
90
57
1643
1788
1513
114-1
133-2
116-7
124
108
89
70
50-1
58
44
38-0
45
32
75-8
93
60
1627
1814
1504
113-0
128-2
"3"4
121
106
89
74
5^-h
57
46
37-0
40
32
72-0
86
61
1687
1820
1580
iio-o
132-0
120-0
130
108
Nomads in S<
jytho-D)
'avi
dia
n Tract.
82 68 44-0 52
37 38-7
45
31
88-0 III 70
1584
1690
1438
107-8
I2I-2
112-4
121
104
', A.R.C.S., F.G.S.
39S
APP
SUMMARY OF
SCYTHO-DR
MADRAS (DECCAN).
[E. Thui
Vi
DIMENSIONS OF
.1
9
Length (Glabel-
lo-occipital).
tM
Name of Tribe or
Caste.
Language or Dialect.
Locality,
O
1
1
be
<
a
1
1
%
i
<
40
Madiga
Telugn .
Bellary
183
200
172
14c
25
Brahman (Deshasth) .
Canarese .
Bellary
187
202
180
144
30
Mala
Telugii .
Bellary
184
198
168
142
25
Sadaru Lingayat
Canarese .
Bellary
182
200
170
141
25
Komaii
Canarese .
Bellary
182
194
170
143
40
Bidir
Telugu
Bellary
184
200
168
143
30
Liiiga Banjigaru
Canare.se
Bellary
182
194
166
142
30
Padina Sale
Telugu
Bellary
178
190
165
141
50
Kuriiba
Canarese .
Bellary
181
196
170
142
30
Jangani (Lingayal)
Canarese .
Bellary
181
196
166
143
30
Rangari .
Maralhi .
Bellary '
181
198
168
145
30
Togata
Telugu .
Bellary
177
190
162
142
20
Ganiga
Canarese .
Bellary
180
191
1 66
144
20
Devanga .
Canarese .
Bellary
180
196
170
145
30
Suka Sale
Maralhi .
Bellary .
177
188
1 66
145
30
Sukun Sale
Marathi .
Bellary .
176
190
160
144
DIX III
lASUREMENTS.
IDIAN TYPE.
order of Cephalic Index.)
.1, ESQUIRE.l
AD.
PROPORTIONS OF
HEAD.
DIMENSIONS OF
NOSE.
PROPORTIONS OF
NOSE.
STATURE
UDTB
heme).
Cephalic In
DEX.
Height.
Breadth.
Nasal Index.
i
<
a
<A
s
a
1
14
d
t
is
f
<
a
a
s
1
5
i
i
1
i
■a
d
B
'3
i
<
a
■a
iS
1
a
1
s
S
i
•3
s
a
is
54
130
76"5
83-3
68-0
46
51
40
35
39
32
77-5
9I-I
667
1629
1734
1522
52
132
77-0
83-4
7i'o
48
54
44
36
42
32
75-8
87*2
66-0
1634
1750
1514
t8
134
77-1
85-9
70-3
48
52
44
36
41
34
76-2
93-2
667
1639
1750
1538
1)2
134
77-7
87-0
65-0
48
53
42
35
40
32
73-4
88-9
60-4
1658
1745
1522
1)2
133
77-9
88-2
72-2
47
53
43
36
43
32
77-8
1 00-0
65-3
1610
1683
1532
52
132
78-1
85-3
70-8
46
48
43
36
40
34
79-4
91 -0
65-2
1654
1766
1560
50
134
78-3
87-9
73-7
47
52
43
35
38
31
74-6
86-4
61-5
1656
1730
1578
51
132
787
86-2
72-8
47
53
41
35
38
32
73-2
837
61-5
1599
I7I4
1538
54
134
78-9
88-4
72-9
47
52
41
35
42
30
74'9
92-2
63-3
1627
1754
1474
52
132
79-1
86-8
70-4
47
52
42
35
38
31
74-5
88-1
647
1651
1736
1576
54
138
79-8
92-2
70-7
49
52
46
36
41
33
73-6
84-1
63-5
1613
1684
1544
|8,
136
8o-o
88-1
737
47
50
42
36
46
33
77"5
93-9
68-8
1605
1689
1514
52
140
8o-5
86-7
74-5
48
53
44
35
38
32
73-7
84-4
627
1643
1724
1550
55
136
8o-8
87-1
74' 7
47
52
43
35
38
32
74-6
80-9
65-3
1618
1686
1546
50
134
8i-8
88-2
76- 1
47
51
43
35
40
32
74-8
86-1
62-3
1611
1700
1478
54
136
8z-2
90-0
73-9
47
52
41
35
38
31
74-8
84-4
6i-5
1603
1676
1525
APPENDIX III
399
SUMMARY OF MEASUREMENTS.
DRAVIDIAN TYPE.
MADRAS, CHOTA NAGPUR, MEWAR AND CEYLON. (In order of Nasal Index.)
Tribe or Caste.
Language or Dialect.
40
Lambadi
Kannadiyan (Linga-
yat)
so
Syrian Christians,
Southern
40
Syrian Christians,
Northern
40
Muhammadan :
Shekh
40
Muhammadan:
Palhan
40
Vellala .
40
JIuhammadan:
Saiyad
40
Agamudaiyan
40
Tiyan .
40
Mappila (Moplah) .
40 Badaga .
25 j Brahman : Deshastha
25 ! Brahman: Pattar .
40 ] Brahman : Tamil
! (poorer classes) .
1 75 Nayar .
60 Cheruman
25 Kota
40 Palli
50 ' Jlalaiali
40 Palli
Chakkiliyan
100 Shanan Karuku-
pattayar
25 Pulaiyan
30 Shanan Nattati
40 . Parayan (Pariah) .
40 Irula
40 Mukkuvan
25 '• Kanikar
25 Irula
25 Mala Vedar
23 Malasar
22 Yeruva .
25 Kadia .
25 Paniyan
Jloormen
\ Gujerathi
. Canarese
Malayalam
Malayalam
I Hindustani :
Hindustani :
I
Tamil .
' Hindustani :
j Tamil .
i Malayalam
Hindustani :
i yalam
1 Canarese
' Canarese
Malayalam
Tamil .
Malayalam
Malayalam
Canarese
Tamil .
Tamil .
Tamil .
\ Tamil .
Malayalam
i Tamil .
Tamil .
Tamil .
Malayalam
Malayalam
Tamil .
Malayalam
Tamil .
Canarese
Tamil .
Malayalam
200 Bhil
20
100
20
9
2
29
100
100
73
4
8
78
100
100
100
100
21
100
100
2
Dom
Kurmi .
Bauri
Tanti
Birhor .
CWk .
Oraon .
Bhumij .
Lobar .
Chero .
Binjhia .
Kharia .
Bhuiya .
Santal .
Kharwar
Manda .
Korwa .
Mai Paharia
Male
Asur
Bengali
Bhil
Bihari .
Karmali ;
Bengali .
Bihari .
Kharia .
Bihari .
Kurukh
Bhumij : Bengali
Bihari .
Bihari .
Bihari .
Kharia .
Bihari .
Santali .
Bihari .
Mundari
Korwari
Bengali .
Malto .
Asur or Agaria
Locality.
Tamil
Tamil
Tamil
Mala-
Mysore .
Chingleput
i
j Travancore
! Travancore
Madras City
Madras Cily
Madras City
Madras City
Chingleput
Malabar
Malabar
Nilgiri Hills
Bellary .
Malabar
Madras City
Malabar
Malabar
' Nilgiri Hills
Chingleput
I Shevaroy Hills
i Madras City
Tinnevelly
Travancore
Tinnevelly
Madras City
Chingleput
Malabar
Travancore
Coimbatore
Travancore
Coimbatore
Coorg .
Anaimalai Hills
Malabar
Ceylon and Southern
India
Mewar (Rajputana)
Lohardaga
Manbhum
Western Bengal
Lohardaga
Ranchi .
Lohardaga
Lohardaga
Manbhum
Lohardaga
Lohardaga
Lohardaga
Lohardaga
Lohardaga
Santal Parganas
Lohardaga
Lohardaga
Lohardaga
Santal Parganas
Santal Parganas
Lohardaga
DIMENSIONS OF HE.AD.
Length (Glabfl-
lo-occipital).
Bkkadth
(Extreme).
n I -2 I >
S I S I <
PROPORTIONS
or HEAD.
Cephalic Index.
Dl.MENSIONS OF NOSE.
lltlGIIT.
PROPORTIONS
OF NOSE.
STATURE.
Nasal I.n'dex.
2 I
1S4 197 ^ 16O 1 139 I 148
184 200 it>6 : 140 : 156
128
128
189 202 179 141 \ 150 130
187 200 l;
143 i 152
183 200 1O7 138 I 145
185 196 172
180 196 177
185 190 172
188 200 1 78
189 203 178
189 200 r8o
189 202 180
1S7 202 180
188 203 172
186 199 173 '
142 152
138 i 146
140 150
130
133
131
131
75'4 '>^y':>
76-5 90-4
o.s-7
(_»9'(J
74-8 81 -8 09-3
49
47
49
76-3 82-8 72-(j ; 49
139 j I4<> 12
137 149 126
137 140 130
130 145 128
^44 152 132
140 151 131
142 152 127
192
184
192
186
183
186
186
189
i«3
189
180
184
190
i«5
180
185
182
182
184
183
206 170
.iI9 171
202 183
204 174 j
193 170 '
196 174
198 170
198 170
19.5
198
197
196
204
194
191
196
192
193
194
193
170
1 78
170
170
176
178 i
170 t
174 i
173
164
172
175
141
135
142
138
137
I3(>
139
145
139
144
137
135
142
1.36
137
136
135
134
134
130
155
144
151
144
144
140
152
154
129
123
134
126
130
121
130
134
150' 130
156 i 137
145 130
144 128
152 134
142 I 130
143 131
146 ; 130
144 ; 124
140 125
138 ! 125
149 130
75-6 8i-G 7 1 -.5
76-2 83-1 7I-I
74-1 Si-i 07-9
75-6 84-9 o8-2
74-0 80-9 067
73-0 7X7 08-5
72-8 7,^3 (,8-o
717 77-5 (,(,•!
77-" 83-4 71-0
74-5 81-4 (,9-1
76-3 84-0 119-0
53
34
48 oi
47
48
48
47
4«
51
5<J
53
52
bi
4<J 51
4« 54
47 51
47 55
73-2
73-4
74-1
74-2
74-4
73-0
747
70-0
76-3
76-8
73-6
73-1
75-1
73-4
75-8
73-4
74-5
73-6
72-9
74-0
80-4
81-9
79-1
78-6
82-8
8o-o
80-9
85-4
83-0 ,
83-2
78-3
78-6
83-5
78-9
80-9
80-9
8o-o
82-0
8o-o ,
8i-i '
05-0
077
69-9
69-1
6i-o
04-4
70-4
70-4
47
45
45
4b
40
46
40
47
30
51
50
50
52
51
52
52
72-3
44
50
70-8
40
52
64-8
45
51
08-4
45
50
68-6
47
51
09-1
44
47
70-8
44
48
09-8
43
47
70-0
43
48
67-0
45
51
69-1
43
48
68-4
43
4«
43
40
42
43
44
42
43
43
42
42
41
44
42
41
4«
4"
41
41
39
41
40
41
4"
41
41
4 'J
42
39
41
38
4"
37
38
34
34
35
Sb
35
35
34
?^b
35
3''
34
30
3'J
.I'J
3''
35
35
35
35
3t>
36
37
35
37
3'J
38
37
37
3'->
38
4^
39
38
182 193 169
M4_
Ceylon and Southern India.
79'i 90-0 70-0 48 52
Rajputana.
42 39
I
39
38
4"
4"
40
43
42
43
40
40
39
42
41
39
44
40
4
41
41
41
41
43
40
40
45
41
44
43
43
40
42
45
45
42
42
29
Hi
09-1
837
88-9
59-2
6o-o
1645
1631
31J 71-6 88-9 6o-o 1648
31
i'i
3"
30
30
31
32
3"
29
29
31
}.!
30
31
32
ii
3'^
31
},-
},i
34
34
37
},i
i^
72-3 87-0 62-3 1653
72-4 87-0 (jo-o 1646
73-0 SS-i 577 1644
731 91-3 60-8 1624
74-0 91-3 6l-2 1644
74-2 S8'9 6o-o 1658
750 857 61-5 1641
75-1 88-1 64-0 1648
75-8
l^-b
707
7O7
77-2
77-2
77-3
77-8
77"9
78-2
79-3
79-3
79-8
8o-o
80-9
Si-o
84-6
84-9
84-9
87-2
89-6
89-8
95-1
88-4
87-2
95-3
95-1
102-3
88-9
92-9
90-5
loo-o
95-1
627
66-0 I
647
6o-o
56-9
64-0 ,
68-3
63-8 I
6o-8
97'6 I 64-0
104-9 ' 68-0
92-7
93-0
91-8
905
104-8
105-0
1000
102-6
102-4
103-0
115-4
108-6
68-0
70-8
66-0
70-0
62-5
72-3
72-3
7I-I
75-4
8i-o
72-9
72-9
1641
1634
1643
1625
163 1
1566
1619
1625
'639
1625
1622
1701
1530
1 701
1621
1599
1631
1552
1598
1542
1612
1587
1577
1574
768
724
724
780
748
776
728
853
1520
1504
1560
1540
1538
1532
1538
756 1536
716 1552
744 , 1450
802 ; 1540
750 I 1514
750 I 1534
746 I 1530
808
674 I
742
716!
732 i
694 j
745 !
828 I
1511
1458
1555
1498
1532
1510
1503
1586
626 1434
808 1622
714
668
778
703
680
638
705
680
694
716
31 I 80-7 95-0 62-0 : 1625 1752
181-3 198 106 138-7 ; 149I 130 I 76-5 84
1494
1502
1508
1502
1520
1408
1528
1300
1486
1520
1510
dS 44-8 52 37 I 37-7 45 ' 30 .S4-1
Chota Nagpur and Western Bengal.
184-7
185-6
185-0
184-3
185-5
187-6
184-6
185-9
i86-i
190-7
i 182-7
184-4
I 183-0
184-8
1857
185-9
185-2
183-4
183-6
187-0
194
173
202
167
195
174
190
180
186
185
197
179
198
165
203
162
202
173
195
186
186
174
198
170
197
I67
201
171
200
173
200
169
194
172
200
169
198
166
193
181
140-5
138-9
140-6
142-0
138-5
139-3
139-6
140-3
138-2
137-3
137-4
139-1
140-7
140-2
138-6
I37-8
139-1
137-5
138-5
151
144
146
148
148
158
150
151
143
140
150
148
153;
150!
150
145!
147!
149
141
130
128
129
134
136
131
131
130
131
136
130
130
128
131
130
130
130
129
127
136
76-0
84
75-7
83
75-0
81
76-2
81
76-5
80
73-8
80
75-4
87
75-0
84
75-3
84
72-4
l'^
75-1
81
74-5
86
76-0
85
76-1
88
75-5
^7
74-.5
81
74-4
8i
7.5-8
82
74-8
82
74-0
75
69
66
71
73
74
69
67
67
70
70
70
69
67
69
68
69
69
71
69
73
48-9
47-2
46-1
45-5
47-5
46-2
46-2
46-7
45-9
43-5
43-3
45-3
44-6
45-7
45-0
44-7
44-0
44-1
43-9
42-5
55
53
51
48
49
51
53
53
55
50
45
51
51
53
52
50
48
55
43
38
40
40
39
39
40
33
37
40
39
36
41
36
38
38
/38-7
4t
1
i
36 !
' 39-0
4/
35 !
38-8
44
31
38-8
44
3«'
40-5
41
40
39-7
46
3b
.39-8
47
34
40-4
47
35
39-8
49
33
38-0
39
37
38-2
42
35
40-1
45
35
39-6
45
35
40-6
48
35
40-4
47
31
40-2
50
33
40-7
48
3«>
41-0
48
35
41-5
49
35
40-5
42
39
1 79-1
82-6
84-1
85-2
85-2
85-9
86-1
S6-5
86-7
87-3
88-2
88-5
88-7
88-8
89-7
89-9
92-5
92-9
94-5
95-9
63 i 1629 1764 1476
1540
1500
1500
1490
1606
1460
1480
1460
1488
1500
1510
1480
1470
1510
1466
1446
1480
1450
1470
1604
91
72
1626
17201
98
69
1608 1720
q8
66
1603 171b
94
78
1562 1670 i
87
84
1643
1680
I 103
78
1589
1734
113
70
1621
1744
113
72
1592
1782
113
64
1621
1730
95
76
1.584
1680
98
80
1594
1646
118
77
1 601
1700
113
69
1577
1700
no
74
1614
1770
113
69
1605
1700
112
74
1589
1718
109
79
1595
1680
no
71
1577
1726
113
V
89
1577
1708
103
1630
1656
400
APPE
SUMMARY OF
ARYO.DRA>
UNITED PROVINCES, BEHAR AN
PROPC
DIMENSIONS OF HEAD.
TIONS
A
HEAl
"o
<
■s
Length (Glabello-
Breadth
Cepha
s
occifital).
(Extreme).
Inde)
Name of Tribe
OR Caste.
Language or
Dialect.
Locality.
I-)
%
E
E
6
g
i
§.
E
.3
1
e
3
60
1
J
<
S
S
<
s
s
<
S
26
Bhuinhar
Eastern Hindi
United Provinces
187-2
198
178
I37"4
144
128
73-3
77
67
Brahman
Bihari .
Behar
187-8
202
171
140-8
156
130
74-9
84
59
Babhan
Do. .
Do. .
187-8
201
176
144-1
l6i
130
76-7
90
100
Brahman
Eastern Hindi
United Provinces
187-5
202
170
137-2
152
127
73-1
84
100
Kayasth
Western Hindi
Do.
186-4
200
174
135-4
154
124
72-6
8c
100
Goala .
Bihari .
Behar
185-4
202
171
141-4
160
128
76-2
87
100
Chhatri
Eastern Hindi
United Provinces
188-3
203
172
137-6
152
123
73-0
84
103
Kanjar
Western Hindi
Do.
I81-8
195
165
135 '9
149
120
74-7
82
13
Khatri .
Eastern Hindi
Do.
188-0
195
175
035-2
141
130
71-9
7S
71
Kurmi .
■ Bihari .
Behar
186-9
202
167
141-5
152
133
75-7
83
100
Kurmi .
Eastern Hindi
United Provinces
184-0
200
170
134-9
147
125
73-3
81
65
Thayu .
Do.
Do.
184-0
205
166
136-0
145
128
73-9
83
80
Bania .
Do.
Do.
187-2
200
175
133-5
150
124
71-3
84
36
Kahar .
Bihari .
Behar
1 86-1
203
173
141-7
154
132
76-1
83
33
Barhi .
Western Hindi
United Provinces
J85-4
197
175
133'3
140
125
71-8
78
100
Goala .
Eastern Hindi
Do.
185-2
202
170
135-2
145
125
73-°
85
100
Kewat .
Do.
Do.
^84-3
198
170
134-0
145
124
72-7
80
100
Bhar .
Do.
Do.
185-5
197
170
136-4
147
120
73-5
81
100
Maghya Dom
Bihari .
Behar
186-3
203
171
142-1
154
132
76-2
87
13
Bind .
Do.
Uo.
184-6
192
176
136-7
146
125
74-0
81
32
Kol .
Eastern Hindi
United Provinces
183-1
195
170
132-6
140
120
72-4
81
100
Dosadh
Bihari .
Behar
184-8
201
168
141-8
155
130
76-8
85
45
Lohar .
Western Hindi
United Provinces
184-9
200
170
134-7
145
120
72-8
82
100
Guria .
Eastern Hindi
Do.
184-7
207
169
133-8
147
123
72-4
80
56
Sinhalese
Sinhalese
Ceylon
183-4
202
171
143-9
155
133
78-4
87
02
Chamar
Bihari .
Behar
184-4
198
168
140-3
154
128
76-0
88
100
Kachhi
Western Hindi
United Provinces
184-6
198
172
133--2
149
122
72'I
81
100
Dom .
Eastern Hindi
Do.
182-7
204
170
136-8
148
124
74-8
84
100
Lodha .
Western Hindi
Do.
185-2
201
170
334-5
145
123
72-6
sl
100
Koiri .
Do.
Do.
185-2
197
170
133-6
145
120
72-1
81
100
Pasi .
Eastern Hindi
Do.
185-0
206
169
134-4
146
126
72-6
80
100
Chamar
Do.
Do.
185-1
196
166
134-9
147
123
72-8
81
18
77
Musahar
Musahar
Do.
Bihari .
Do.
Behar
181-7
183-0
197
200
170
171
134-8
138-6
145
150
130
130
74-1
75-7
79
84
EASUREMENTS.
IAN TYPE.
;EYL0N. (In order of Nasal Index.)
PROPOR
n
RELATIVE PROMINENCE OF
DIMENSIONS OF NOSE.
TIONS OF
STATURE. 1
ROOT OF NOSE.
NOSE.
Height.
Breadth.
Nasal Index.
1
S
Orbito-Nasal
Index.
1
3I
■«
;
I
i
e
s
6
.1
i
3
S
3
S
"S
8i
E
3
.§
s
J
2
>
3
.3
E
3
1
11
s
SIT
■2|
I
3
E
E
3
6
S
i
<
%
S
<
S
41
S
<
s
^
<
S
s
mS
P5 w
<
s
g
*;,
47-2
52
40
34-5
31
73-0
91
61
1660
1727
1574
5
49-3
56
40
36-1
43
3i
73-2
93
63
i66r
1790
1544
...
50-5
58
42
37-4
43
33
74-0
90
62
1662
1760
1540
(6'
46-5
53
35
347
41
28
74-6
100
60
1659
1879
1422
I,
46-6
52
32
34-9
44
30
74-8
102
5f
1648
1792
1498
fe
48-5
56
41
37-2
45
29
767
100
58
1642
1780
1502
^
45-8
53
38
35-6
43
29
777
97
58
1661
1803
1498
^1
437
54
32
34-1
40
28
78-0
1 06
59
X636
1778
1498
%
45*7
53
40
357
39
33
78-1
93
64
1623
1727
1524
!9
47-6
56
40
37-4
42
30
78-5
98
60
1630
1764
J520
ii
43'9
52
39
34-8
41
30
79-2
98
60
1642
1966
1349
(f
45'4
59
40
36-1
46
31
79-5
102
61
1614
1752
1524
114-0
130-0
114-0
119-0
log-o
ft
447
54
35
35-6
41
30
79-6
106
65
1642
1816
1473
...
!•
48-0
56
40
38-3
45
30
797
103
63
1624
1760
1510
ft
42-9
48
37
347
42
31
8o-8
105
67
1637
1727
1574
'i
43'i
52
35
34"9
42
29
80-9
108
60
1628
J 752
1447
h
43'2
52
32
35'2
42
29
81-4
[00
62
1626
1752
1498
fc
44 '4
55
33
36"4
46
30
81-9
109
60
1612
1790
1473
?'
48-0
55
40
39'5
48
32
82-2
98
62
1648
1770
1496
II2-6
128-7
114-2
125-0
103-0
«
45'°
52
38
37'o
40
35
82-2
100
71
1612
1686
1534
iii-g
125-9
112-5
II2-0
107-0
i!
44-0
49
41
36-2
40
30
82-2
93
64
1650
1779
1549
i'
46-8
56
40
38-6
44
33
82-4
100
64
1620
1728
1494
134-5
I32-I
1 15-3
126-0
105-0
fi
43 '4
52
35
35-8
43
29
82-4
114
60
1636
1826
1498
...
'i
42-1
52
33
34-8
41
28
82-6
103
60
1627
1752 1 1473
...
■■„■
((■
477
52
41
39-2
46
34
82-6
100
68
1625
1730 i 1499
99-3
1 12-3
112-8
II8-O
106-0
(S
46-0
52
39
38-1
44
32
82-8
95
65
1612
1840 1480
it
417
50
33
34"6
42
29
82-9
117
60
1642
182I 1485
')
45"4
55
37
377
45
32
83-0
122
62
1655
1778 1524
...
...
'J
41-6
49
34
347
42
30
83-4
109
65
1628
1778 ; 1536
...
il
427
51
35
357
43
30
83-6
III
60
1628
1752
1511
ll
41-2
52
33
35'2
42
27
85-4
"5
66
1639
1778
1524
ti
4I-0
50
34
35'3
41
30
86-0
109
64
1630
1765
1524
i|
42-5
47
37
36-6
43
32
86-1
103
73
1598
1701
1498
H
45-5
52
38
40-4
49
34
887
"3
72
1591
1696 j 1500
lo8-3
I2I-8
112-4
121-0
105-0
APP]
SUMMARY OF
MONCiOLO.
BENGAL AND ORISS/
PE
i
DIMENSIONS OF HEAD.
TI(
\
Lekgtm (Glabello-
Breadth
Ce
w
occipital).
(Extreme).
I
'o
Name of Tribe
Language or
Locality.
1
OR Caste.
Dialect.
J3
a
1
t
a
1
a
g
S
a
a
s
<
s
>
<
i
>
<
lOO
Kochh (Rajbansi)
Rajbansi .
N.-E. Bengal
186-2
202
166
140-2
153
127
75-2
88*
Kochh (Rajbansi)
Do.
Do. .
l8l-o
202
165
139-0
152
131
76-7
99
Bagdi
Bengali .
Bengal .
182-7
201
172
139'5
153
130
76-3
12
Mai..
Do. .
Western Bengal
183-0
191
166
I4i"3
J46
135
77 -2
41
Goala
Do. .
Eastern Bengal
183-8
198
170
1/12-1
153
131
77-3
lOO
Kaibarta .
Do. .
Do.
182-3
198
166
141-1
152
129
77-3
48
Sadgop
Do. .
Bengal, 24-Parganas
182-6
190
168
142-1
150
132
77-6
27
Muchi
Do. .
Eastern Bengal
182-9
198
170
142-0
151
133
77-6
100
Pod .
Do. .
Bengal, 24-Parganas
183-2
198
172
142-4
155
130
77"7
185
Muhammadan
Do. .
Eastern Bengal
182-8
199
168
142-7
156
131
78-0
67
Chandal
Do. .
Do. .
183-2
201
166
I43'i
151
131
78-1
100
Kayastha .
Do. .
Bengal .
182-4
195
169
142-8
155
129
78-2
32
Brahman .
Do. .
Western Bengal
182-2
195
171
142-6
151
135
78-2
68
Brahman .
Do. .
Eastern Bengal
181-5
195
170
I43H
151
134
79-0
20
Rajbansi Magh .
Magh .
Chittagong
178-6
192
166
148-4
157
140
83-0
43
Karan
Oriya
Puri .
186-I
197
174
142-0
152
130
76-2
26
Niari
Do.
Cullack
185-0
193
170
141'5
151
131
76-4
45
Teli .
Do.
Puri .
184-0
196
166
140-8
150
129
75-6
59
Chasa
Do.
Cuttack
183-9
196
169
141-9
151
129
77-1
55
Shashan Brahman
Do.
Puri .
182-9
195
171
141-2
155
128
77-1
38
Kewat
Do.
i Cuttack
183-4
198
173
141-9
157
131
77-3
40
Khandait .
Do.
Do. .
183-6
197
171
142-0
153
133
77-3
40
Bauri
Do.
Do. .
180-4
193
165
139-6
149
130
77-3
40
Mastan Brahman
Do.
Pari .
183-8
197
169
142-7
154
132
77-6
40
Pan .
Do.
Cuttack
182-2
193
161
I4i"5
154
130
77-6
41
Gaura
Do.
Do. .
182-8
198
166
142-1
151
130
77'7
41
Panda Brahman .
Do.
Puri .
183-3
195
171
142-7
152
132
77-8
41
Kandra
Do.
Cuttack
182-6
198
168
143-3
157
133
78-4
40
Guria . . |
Do.
Puri .
182-9
204
163
143-5 167
135
78-4
Lt.-
DIX III
401
fEA S U RE ME NTS.
BAVIDIAN TYPE.
On order of Cephalic Index.)
DIMENSIONS OF NOSE.
Height.
!i is
i Bengal,
48-9
45-0
467
47-2
49-0
48-0
49-6
49-1
49-1
49-4
49-6
50-2
48-5
49-9
51-0
68
71
68
71
71
70
72
72
70
70
70
70
72
70
-74
Orissa.
68
70
71
70
67
71
69
70
69
68
70
70
69
69
47-7
46-8
47-1
47-5
48-4
47-0
48-0
45 '5
67-9
46-6
48-4
47"9
47-6
47-0
55
39
5.S
39
56
39
53
41
57
41
59
40
55
40
56
3S
55
40
54
39
55
42
55
41
54
40
55
41
Breadth.
37-5
36-0
37'6
40-0
36-4
36-6
367
36-8
37'4
38-3
367
35'3
34"9
35-1
38-2
38-8
377
36-5
377
37-2
.387
37-8
38-3
38-0
38-3
37-2
37-1
37'9
37-3
PROPOR-
TIONS OF
NOSE.
Nasal Imjsex.
3
B
M
^
<
s
76-6
92
8o-o
109
80-5
100
847
100
74-2
87
76-2
103
73-9
98
74-9
88
7b-i
91
77-5
96
73 '9
89
70-3
89
71-9
100
70-3
8.1
74-9
88
8x-3
100
8o-,5
100
77-4
95
79-3
95
76-8
93
82-^
98
787
98
85-1
"3
79-3
100
82-1
100
76-8
96
77-4
1 00
79-b
100
79-3
93
STATURE.
1,607
I.59I
1,603
1,622
1,646
1,629
1.633
1,641
1,625
1,634
1,619
1,636
1,670
1,653
1,645
1,638
1,611
1,619
1,615
1,635
1,611
1,645
1.585
1,642
1,607
1,627
1,642
1,625
1,606
1,746
1,695
1,722
1,730
1,746
1,770
1,780
1,742
1,850
1,760
1,734
1,810
1,734
1,792
1,750
1,792
1,756
1,794
1,752
1,748
1,716
1,728
1,686
1,755
1,748
1,748
1,750
1,722
1,724
1,440
1,502
1,434
1,520
1,500
1,490
1,510
1,536
1,490
1,500
^,472
1,544
1,550
i>474
1,542
1,486
1,469
1,500
1,450
1,498
1,500
1,529
1,476
1,468
1,462
1,510
1,558
1,506
1,476
RELATIVE PROMINENCE OF
ROOT OF NOSE.
o S
(C
A
a
S
a
>
«
Orbito- Nasal
Index.
1037
115-0
lOO-O
iio-o
I06-O
II9-0
99-6
III-I
113-2
128-6
112-3
128-1
106-6
1x8-3
109-8
127-7
107-9
122-8
107-8
124-8
I08-2
123-5
109-2
127-4
108-3
123-7
109-5
126-9
110-3
124-2
II0-6
129-5
iio-o
124-1
1 10-3
126-0
109-5
126-9
111-7
127-8
108-9
125-6
2
>
<
S
s
•s.
110-8
121
IIO-O
121
1 12-2
118
I1I-5
118
II3-6
121
114-0
121
1 10-9
115
II6-3
126
11 3-8
120
1157
123
111-4
121
ri6-6
123
114-2
121
115-8
123
112-6
117
171-0
120
112-8
119
114-2
122
115-8
124
114-4
121
115-3
122
104
93
106
104
106
106
105
107
108
109
no
109
108
104
112
107
108
107
110
107
il, VVaddell.
402
SUMMARY OF
MONQOI
EASTERN HIMALAYA, CHITTAQONQ HILL TRACT
PE
M*
DIME>
Length (Glai
ISIONS OF HEAD.
TK
ELLO-
Breadth
Cl
^
occipital).
(Extreme).
I
"o
TV > »f 1^ i^ Q T* n T n t «
Language
or Dialect.
Ixtcality.
INAHt, QV IRIBL.
OR Caste.
s
Is
(d
a
i
'S
tu>
e
E
1
i
.9
i
<:
g
%
<
S
s
<
17
Kuki .
Rangkhol
Rangamati
187-2
200
179
142-8
156
136
76-2
II
Kuki*
Rangkhol
Rangamati
187-0
195
176
143-0
151
137
76-4
100
Chakma
Tipiira .
Rangamati
177-9
195
162
150-0
161
134
84-3
8
Chakma ' .
Tipura
Chittagong
i8i-o
186
177
144-0
156
135
79-5
17
Ao* .
Ao
Naga Hills .
179-0
187
170
144-0
153
137
80-4
50
Limbii
Limbu .
Nepal .
1 81 -4
193
170
I53-I
167
140
84-3
80
Magh
Magh .
Rangamati
182-1
198
170
148-5
161
136
81-5
32
Khambu
Kiranti
(Khambu)
Nepal .
182-4
194
169
147-8
160
130
8i-o
II
Kiranti - .
Kiranti .
Ham (E. Nepal) .
176-0
182
171
145-0
153
138
82-3
7
Khamti (Tai) * .
Khamti
Dibrugah (Assam)
Bor-khamli
187-0
196
180
148-0
151
144
79-1
58
Tipra
Tipura .
Rangamati
181-4
193
167
146-1
160
136
8o-5
18
Ar-leng (Mikir) *
Mikir .
Kamrup (Assam) .
181-0
193
172
141-0
151
138
77-9
57
Lepcha
Lepcha .
Sikkim .
185-0
195
174
146-7
161
136
79-9
36
Lepcha (Rong) * .
Rangor
Lepcha
Sikkim .
i8o-o
193
167
145-0
157
133
8o-5
81
Kasia '
Kasi .
Kasia Hills (Assam)
183-0
193
171
144-0
151
133
78-6
5
Murung
Mrung
Tipura
Chittagong
185-4
189
182
142-0
152
135
76-5
35
Mangor
Magar .
Nepal . • .
183-6
201
163
145-2
156
136
79-0
7
Dafla *
Dafla .
N. Lakhimpur (As-
183-0
189
178
141-0
146
138
77-0
65
Murnii
Murnii .
Nepal and Darjee-
ling
Pato (E. Himalaya)
188-0
196
169
149-6
161
134
79-5
9
Bhotanese *
Bhotia .
183-0
188
176
147-0
157
140
80-3
108
Tibetans .
Bhotia .
Eastern Himalaya .
186-9
207
172
151-4
168
141
8i-o
8
Tibetans* .
Bhotia .
Kong-bu (E. Hima-
laya)
Goalpara (Assam) .
182-0
189
173
148-0
161
143
81-3
10
Mech
Mech .
185-0
203
171
147-0
153
143
79-0
33
Bodo (Kachari) *
Bodo .
Kamrup (Assam) .
181-0
195
171
142-0
152
135
78-4
28
Gurung
Gurung .
Darjeeling and Nepal
181-3
202
169
148-1
168
141
81-6
7
Abor .
Abor .
Dihong valley
184-0
192
172
142-0
147
135
77-1
13
Nevvar
Newar .
Nepal .
181-9
193
169
148-3
156
142
25
Mi-shing (Miri) *
Miri .
Sibsagar (Assam) .
178-0
199
169
144-0
153
139
80-8
27
Sin-teng (Jaintia)*
Khasi .
Jantia Hills .
192-0
199
176
140-0
149
134
72-9
13
Ching-po (Sing-
pho) *
Ahom *
Singpho
Bisha (Assam)
185-0
192
173
140-0
146
137
75-6
19
Ahom .
Sibsagar (Assam) .
176-0
185
161
145-0
154
137
82-3
12
Rabha (Datiyal
Kachari) *
Mande (Garo) * .
Kachari
Kamrup (Assam) .
182-0
197
170
142-0
149
135
78-0
34
Mande .
Garo Hills (Assam)
183-0
193
174
139-0
150
134
75-9
3
Chutiya * 1
Chutiya
Sibsagar (Assam) .
182-0
183
182
143-0
145
142
78-5
30
Kanett .
Lahauli .
Lahoul .
189-0
199
179
147-0
155
138
77-5
16
Anga-mi * .
Angami
Ta-bo-pi-si-mi
183-0
194
170
144-0
152
135
78-6
4
Kyon-Tsu("Lho-
ta" "Naga")*
Lhota .
Woka (Assam)
187-0
200
178
144-0
154
141-
77-0
60
Kanet +
Kulu .
Kulu .
192-0
204
181
143-0
154
132
74-3
6
Kolita * .
Kachari
Gauhati (Assam) .
i8i-o
187
170
139-0
148
134
76-7
Lt.-Col. Waddell, c.i.e.
mx III
^ASUREMENTS.
Olli TYPE.
USD ASSAM. (In order of Orbito-Nasal Index— Risley.)
POI-
S(F
41,
DIMENSIONS OF
NOSE.
PROPOR-
TIONS OF
NOSE.
STATURE.
RELATIVE PROMINENCE
OF ROOT OF NOSE.
m.
Dll
Height.
Breadth.
Nasal Index.
a
Orbiio-Nasai
Index.
•5^
rt
2
<
a
1
1
1
t
<
S
P
a
ffl
s
a
5
s
ii,
2
%
<
a
a
E
.1
s
si
<
a
a
■A
s
a
a
, *a
ii
.5s
Si V
I2
» >
d3^
i
<
nl
B
a
6
s
s
1171
467
52
43
39-7
43
34
85-0
93
74
1566
1650
1506
99'5
105-7
106-2
110
102
8274
45
49
41
41
45
38
9I-I
100
84
1587
1670
1508
iio-o
121-0
IIO-O
"3
105
9677
47-2
53
41
39-9
46
30
84-5
105
70
1595
1696
1490
I0I-3
107-8
106-4
112
102
"J
44
49
39
40
45
38
90-9
1 02
80
1597
1639
1546
103-0
117-0
"3'5
121
107
«5 76
44
49
37
36
41
31
8i-8
100
70
1566
1648
1504
104-0
III-O
106-7
112
lOI
9476
502
57
37
37-2
43
33
74-1
HI
64
1603
1734
1450
log-i
116-7
106-9
Ii3
104
95 73
47-5
55
38
39-4
48
34
82-9
102
68
1599
1710
1522
loi-o
108-0
106-9
"3
1 02
93 75
50-0
57
45
38-3
42
33
76-6
91
63
1571
1656
1416
107-2
115-0
107-1
113
103
8S77
42
44
39
36
40
35
857
98
82
1586
1606
1512
...
8375
47
51
44
38
41
36
8o-8
91
75
1641
1695
1575
105-0
113-0
107-6
110
10^
9274
47-1
59
40
39-9
45
35
847
105
68
l6li
1712
i486
loo-o
107-6
107-6
112
103
8274
47
58
42
40
47
34
85-1
102
67
1633
1703
1558
103-0
III-O
107-7
114
104
9073
51-6
60
42
347
41
33
67-2
83
59
1570
1690
1490
106-4
II5-I
108-1
"3
103
8873
46
51
40
36
42
32
78-2
91
67
1584
1684
1449
102-0
108-0
105-8
119
92
8(72
44
52
36
38
45
33
86-3
108
73
1569
1700
1417
106-0
115-0
108-4
119
lOI
8273
49-0
51
47
37-6
40
36
76T
81
73
1582
1636
1536
100-2
108-8
108-5
115
103
9172
49-5
56
40
38-0
44
34
76-6
98
61
1587
1680
1508
106-4
"57
108-7
116
103
!i73
44
48
40
37
42
33
84-0
93
78
i6o6
1708
1532
103-0
112-0
108-7
114
104
i9i73
497
57
41
37-4
43
32
75-2
100
63
1669
1760
1490
111-5
121-5
108-9
"3
105
7 75
48
54
41
37
41
36
77-0
88
73
1672
1747
1611
II 0-0
120-0
109-0
"5
105
3 73
51-8
59
38
38-3
47
31
73-9
103
58
1633
1760
1520
119-8
130-8
109-1
120
103
678
45
49
42
37
41
36
82-2
91
76
1634
1748
1570
I06-0
112-0
105-6
109
102
4 71
43
45
42
39
43
38
90-6
100
84
1643
1722
1852
104-0
1 14-0
109-6
114
104
(73
42
50
35
37
49
33
88-0
118
72
1608
1734
1483
103-0
113-0
109-7
116
103
173
48-9
58
38
38-4
43
34
78-5
102
65
1698
1746
1476
1 1 7-0
128-6
109-9
H4
105
«75
43
49
41
39
41
36
8i-6
100
80
1579
1628
1490
108-0
1 19-0
IIO-I
115
107
976
507
57
44
37-2
42
34
73-3
81
64
1614
1706
1470
108-6
119-7
110-2
116
104
J 73
44
51
40
37
41
34
84-0
100
75
1564
1700
1518
105-0
II6-0
110-4
119
103
069
45
52
39
37
42
32
82-2
100
68
1612
1713
1505
107-0
1 1 9-0
III-2
119
102
17+
47
56
40
38
42
29
8o-8
95
60
1605
1695
1528
104-0
116-0
iii-5
128
104
175
44
49
38
36
41
33
8i-8
90
73
1589
1720
1490
103-0
115-0
1II-6
124
104
74
43
49
37
39
44
36
90-6
105
73
1605
1695
1528
102-0
1 14-0
111-7
128
104
71
41
47
36
39
43
35
95-1
117
83
1588
1679
1512
102-0
1 1 4-0
111-7
119
102
78
44
48
38
36
38
35
8i-8
95
76
1591
1607
1582
1 1 0-0
124-0
112-7
119
106
72
53
59
47
35
39
32
66-4
76
57
1618
1750
1450
99-0
112-0
112-9
123
105
71
45
52
42
37
40
36
82-2
91
73
1639
1693
1539
103-0
117-0
113-5
120
105
75
43
47
38
34
38
34
79-0
100
72
1620
1690
1580
103-0
118-0
ii4"5
117
108
68
51
59
45
37
44
30
74-1
96
56
1654
1760
1560
lOI-O
1 1 7-0
II5-5
129
107
74
43
47
38
36
40
31
837
97
66
1628
1666
1568
lOI-O
118-0
116-8
124
"3
t T. H. Holland, Esq., a.r.c.s.,-f.g.s.
APPENDIX IV
INFANT MARRIAGE LAWS, MYSORE AND BARODA
EEGULATIOK" No. X OF 1894.
(Passed on the sth day of October, 1894.)
A Regulation to prevent Infant Marriages in the Territories of Mysore.
Whereas it is expedient to prevent Infant Marriages in the Territories of Mysore :
His Highness the Maharajah is pleased to enact as
follows :— Preamble.
1. This Regulation may be called " The Mysore Infant
Marriages Prevention Regulation." ^bari title.
(2) It shall extend to the whole of the territories of Mysore, but it shall apply
only to marriages among the Hindus. It shall come into
operation at the expiration of six months from the date Extent and
of its publication in the official Gazette. commencement.
2. For the purposes of this Regulation, an" Infant Girl"
means a girl who has not completed eight years of age. x»enmtion.
3. Any person who causes the marriage of an infant girl, or who knowingly
aids and abets within the meaning of the Indian Penal
Code such a marriage, and any man who having completed Punishment for
eighteen years of age marries an infant girl, shall be pausing or abetting
punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may *^ marriages,
extend to six months, or with fine, or with both.
4. Any man who having completed fifty years of Punishment for a
age marries a girl who has not completed fourteen years nian more than fifty
of age, shall be punished with imprisonment of either years of age marry-
description for a term which may extend to two years, ing a girl under four-
or with fine, or with both. *een years of age.
5. Any person who causes the marriage of a girl who has not completed
fourteen years of age, with a man who has completed fifty Punishment f o r
years of age, and any person who knowingly aids and abetment of offence
abets, within the meaning of the Indian Penal Code, such provided against in
a marriage, shall be punished with simple imprisonment section 4.
for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine, or with both.
6. No offence punishable under this Regulation shall Ofiences under the
be tried by any Court inferior to that of a Magistrate of Kegiilationbywh.om
the District. triable.
Validity of mar-
7. No marriage which has actually taken place, shall riages notwith-
be deemed to be invalid, on the ground of the penalties standing the penal-
provided by this Regulation. ties provided by the
Begulation.
404 PEOPLE OF INDIA
No prosecution to 8. No prosecution under this Regulation shall be
be instituted with- instituted without the previous written sanction of the
out the previous Government accorded after such enquiry as the Govern-
ment!°'' °^ *^°"^^''''" '"^"^ '"^y ^^^'"^ ^^ *° "'^^^•
ABSTRACT TRANSLATION OF
ACT No. VII OP SAMVAO? 1960.
Passed by the Baroda Durbar.
{Received the assent of His Highness the Maharajah Sahib on Ashad Sudi
2nd, i.e., the it,th of July, 1904.)
THE EARLY MARRIAGE PREVENTION ACT.
Whereas it is expedient to draw the increased attention of the public towards
physical training, whereby the future progeny may be
Preamble. healthy and long-lived, His Highness the Gaekwar has
been pleased to rule as under : —
1. This Act shall be called " The Early Marriage
Title. Prevention Act."
2. This Act shall come into force on Ashad Sudi 9th
Commencement. gamvat i960, i.e., the 21st July, 1904.
3. In this Code, the following words have the following
Definitions. _ • .
meanmgs : —
(1) " Minor " means—
(a) In case of a girl, one who has not completed her 12th year of age.
{b) In case of a boy, one who has not completed his i6th year.
(2) " Early marriage" means the marriage of a minor girl or of a minor boy.
The word "marriage" does not include a "Baybar" marriage or a
marriage with a ball of flowers, or such other nominal marriages.
(3) " Nyayadhish " means Nyayadhish of a Mahal, or who may be from time
to time invested with the powers (of that officer).
(4) The term " Wahivatdar " includes Mahalkari also.
4. Whoever wishes to marry his minor son or daughter, or the minor
What authorities 8'""' °"' ^°^ ""*^^"' '"'^ guardianship, shall submit a petition
of the State are to be '« writing to the Nyayadhish of the Taluka where he
applied to for per- may be residing, or to that of the Taluka in which the
mission to allow an intended marriage is to take place, for permission to
early marriage. allow the marriage.
Explanation. — There is no objection to a joint petition being submitted by both
the parties in cases in which the girl and the boy are both minors.
The value of stamp 5- The petitions alluded to in the preceding Section
on the application, must be written on a (Court-fee) stamped paper of Rs. 2.
Particulars to be 5_ -pjig petition mentioned in Section 4 must contain
p^ition '" the following particulars :-
{a) the names, age, and caste of the bride and the bridegroom ;
{b) the names of their father or guardian ;
(ir) the date and place of the marriage, and
APPENDIX IV 405
(rf) the mention, in full, of the difficulties likely to crop up in case the
marriage does not take place.
r„, „ . ■ r , ,■ • 1 11 Procedure to be
7. The Nyayadhish, on receipt of the application, shall fouowed on receipt
take steps as under :— of the application.
(a) he shall fix a date, within the period of 1 5 days, for the hearing of the
petition ;
(i) shall appoint three gentlemen of the petitioner's caste, as assessors ;
and
(c) shall issue summonses for their appearance in the Court, on the
appointed date.
8, On the date of hearing, the Nyayadhish, assisted by the assessors, shall
enquire into the petition, recording all such evidence as Enquiries in con-
may be produced in its support, and shall dispose of the nection with the
same by the end of the day. application.
(2) If the Nyayadhish and all the assessors present or any two of them be
satisfied that in the event of the marriage not taking place on the
appointed date,
(a) there is no probability of its celebration within one year after the bride
or the bridegroom comes to age or that it will not take place at all, Or
(i) it is likely that the parents or the guardian of the girl whose marriage is
to be celebrated by them will not, owing to old age or infirmity,
survive till she comes to age, and there is none else fit to take care of
her besides them, or
(c) that unavoidable difficulties of a like nature are likely to crop up, the
Nyayadhish shall grant written permission for the celebration of the
marriage under his own seal and signature in accordance with the
form laid down in the first schedule annexed to this Act.
Explanation. — The permission to be granted for reasons mentioned in
sub-sections (J>) and (c) should only be granted if the girl's age is above nine
years.
(3) If permission for the celebration of an early marriage of a girl whose
betrothal has taken place before this Act comes into force, be asked
within three months after the passing thereof, the Nyayadhish should
grant the necessary permission after satisfying himself only that the
betrothal has taken place before this Act came into force.
9. In course of an enquiry held, or investigations made, for the purposes of
this Act, neither the bride nor the bridegroom will be .
compelled to be present for bodily examination or the tEotcompSy
bride for any other examination.
10. {a) If the Nyayadhish does not agree with the Procedure to be
assessors or with any two of them, the proceedings shall followed when the
be referred with their opinions and reasons therefor, by Court does not agree
the Nyayadhish to the District Judge. with the assessors.
{b) The District Judge shall dispose of the same within a week, and if he
thinks that permission should be given, the same shall be given by him in writing
as laid down in Section 8.
11. The Nyayadhish granting the permission shall. The Suba to be sup-
within eight days, forward to the Suba of the District, a plied with a copy of
copy of the document by which the permission applied the document grant-
for was granted by him. ing the permission.
12. Whoever celebrates or aids to celebrate an early marriage, which has not
been given the required permission as laid down in Sections
8 and 10, shall be punished with a fine which may not Punishment,
exceed Rs. 100.
406 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Exception— This provision does not extend to the bride and the bridegroom.
Period of time iS- None of the offences provided for by this Act
during wMch the shall be tried by the Court, after two years from the date
offence can be tried, of the marriage.
14. In all the towns, kasbas and villages of the Baroda State, the officials
„, . , i. . mentioned below shall keep a register of marriages as per
The registration of ,,<,,,, „ j ,-,, • .f ^- 1 • j
marriaees Schedule No. 2 and fill m the particulars as required
by Section 15 :
(a) In the city of Baroda ... ... ... The Municipal Inspectors.
(b) In the kasbas The Sudhrai Kamdar.
(c) In the villages or kasbas where there is
no municipality. Village or villages
administered in any other way The Mulki Patel.
{d) In Inam village or villages administered
in any other way The Mukhi, or Inamdar, or
Administrator.
(2) A copy of the registration (sub-section i) shall be submitted before the
loth of the next month by the officials concerned to the Suba, through the Taluka
Wahivatdar. Immediate information regarding marriages celebrated against the
provision of this Act, shall be given to the Nyayadhish having jurisdiction.
(3) The Suba on receipt of the copy (sub-section 2) shall submit annually a
statement (Schedule No. 3) to the Sar Suba. It should be despatched within two
months after the expiration of each year.
(4) In the absence of any other orders, the Nyayadhish, to whom a copy of the
register of marriages is sent according to sub-section 2, should understand that a
complaint has been laid before him according to Section 12 of this Act and shall
proceed to try the offence summarily in accordance with the provisions of the Code
of Criminal Procedure. The case, however, should not be handed over to the
Police for investigations under Section 56 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
(5) At the termination of the enquiries (sub-section 4) if any punishment be
awarded, the same shall be communicated (as per Schedule No. 4) to the Suba
within eight days.
15. The father or the guardian of the bride shall report the marriage to the
officials concerned within eight days after its celebration
be renorted ^'"^ shall obtain from them particulars, as per the Schedule
No. 5.
16. If the father or the guardian of the bride fails to give the information
Ptmishment for about the marriage as required by the preceding section,
not getting the mar- or gives false information in connection with the same, he
riages registered. shall be punished with a fine which may not exceed Rs. lo.
connTtfon with the 'V '^^^ --"PonsibiUties for the proper registration of
registration of mar- marriages, as laid down in Section 14, shall rest with the
riage. Wahivatdar of the Mahal.
The marriage can- 18. An early marriage, if once celebrated, cannot be
not be set aside. set aside.
APPENDIX V
MODERN THEORIES OF CASTE
MR. NES FIELD'S THEORY*
If it were possible to compress into a single paragraph a theory so complex as
that which would explain the origin and nature of Indian caste, I should attempt
to sum it up in some such words as the following : A caste is a marriage union,
the constituents of which were drawn from various different tribes (or from various
other castes similarly formed), in virtue of some industry, craft or function, either
secular or religious, which they possessed in common. The internal discipline,
by which the conditions of membership in regard to connubial and convivial rights
are defined and enforced, has been borrowed from the tribal period which pre-
ceded the period of castes by many centuries, and which was brought to a close
by the amalgamation of tribes into a nation under a common sceptre. The
differentia of caste as a marriage union consists in some community of function ;
while the differentia of tribe as a marriage union consisted in a common ancestry,
or a common worship, or a common totem, or in fact in any kind of common
property except that of a common function. Long before castes were formed on
Indian soil, most of the industrial classes, to which they now correspond, had
existed for centuries, and as a rule most of the industries which they practised
were hereditary on the male side of the parentage. These hereditary classes were
and are simply the concrete embodiments of those successive stages of culture
which have marked the industrial development of mankind in every part of the
world. Everywhere (except at least in those countries where he is still a savage),
man has advanced from the stage of hunting and fishing to that of nomadism and
cattle-grazing, and from nomadism to agriculture proper. Everywhere has the
age of metallurgy and of the arts and industries which are coeval with it been
preceded by a ruder age, when only those arts were known or practised which
sufficed for the hunting, fishing, and nomad states. Everywhere has the class of
ritualistic priests and lettered theosophists been preceded by a class of less culti-
vated worshippers, who paid simple offerings of flesh and wine to the personified
powers of the visible universe without the aid of an hereditary professional priest-
hood. Everywhere has the class of nobles and territorial chieftains been preceded
by a humbler class of small peasant proprietors, who placed themselves under
their protection and paid tribute or rent in return. Everywhere has this class
of nobles and chieftains sought to ally itself with that of the priests or sacerdotal
order; and everywhere has the priestly order sought to bring under its control
those chiefs and rulers under whose protection it lives. All these classes, then,
* Brief view of the Caste System of the N.- W. P. and Oudh, by John C. Nesfield, M.A.,
Oxon, pp. 114 — 116, para. 195.
4o8 PEOPLE OF INDIA
had been in existence for centuries before any such thing as caste was known on
Indian soil ; and the only thing that was needed to convert them into castes, such
as they now are, was that the Brahman, who possessed the highest of all functions
— the priestly — should set the example. This he did by establishing for the first
time the rule that no child, either male or female, could inherit the name and
status of Brahman, unless he or she was of Brahman parentage on both sides.
By the establishment of this rule the principle of marriage unionship was super-
added to that of functional unionship ; and it was only by the combination of
these two principles that a caste in the strict sense of the term could or can be
formed. The Brahman therefore, as the Hindu books inform us, was "the first-
born of castes." When the example had thus been set by an arrogant and over-
bearing priesthood, whose pretensions it was impossible to put down, the other
hereditary classes followed in regular order downwards, partly in imitation and
partly in self-defence. To a nation mesmerised by Brahmans and blinded with
superstition and ignorance no other course was open. Immediately behind the
Brahman came the Kshatriya, the military chieftain or landlord. He therefore
was the " second-born of castes." Then followed the bankers or upper trading
classes (the Agarwal, Khattri, etc.) ; the scientific musician and singer (Kathak) \
the writing or literary class (Kayasth) ; the bard or genealogist (Bhat) ; and the
class of inferior nobles (Taga and Bhuinhar) who paid no rent to the landed
aristocracy. These, then, were the third-born of castes. In all communities,
such classes must stand rather high in the scale of social respectability, since the
stages of industry or function which they represent are high in proportion ; but
in India their rank was more precisely defined than elsewhere by the fact that
they made a nearer approach than the castes below them to the Brahmanical
ideal of personal dignity and purity. Next in order came those artisan classes,
who were coeval with the age and art of metallurgy ; the metallurgic classes
themselves; the middle trading classes; the middle agricultural classes, who
placed themselves under the protection of the Kshatriya and paid him rent in
return (Kurmi, Kachhi, Mali, Tamboli) ; and the middle serving classes, such as
Napit and Baidya, who attended to the bodily wants of their equals and superiors.
These, then, were the fourth-born of castes ; and their rank in the social scale
has been determined by the fact that their manners and notions are further
removed than those of the preceding castes from the Brahmanical ideal. Next
came the inferior artisan classes, those which preceded the age and art of
metallurgy (Teli, Kumhar, Kalwar, etc.) ; the partly nomad and partly agricultural
classes (Jat, Gujar, Ahir, etc.) ; the inferior serving classes, such as Kahar ; and
the inferior trading classes, such as Bhunja. These, then, were the fifth-born -of
castes, and their mode of life is still further removed from the Brahmanical ideal
than that of the preceding. The last born, and therefore the lowest, of all the
classes are those semi-savage communities, partly tribes and partly castes, whose
function consists in hunting or fishing, or in acting as butcher for the general
community, or in rearing swine and fowls, or in discharging the meanest domestic
services, such as sweeping and washing, or in practising the lowest of human arts,
such as basket-making, hide-tanning, etc. Thus throughout the whole series of
Indian castes a double test of social precedence has been in active force the
Industrial and the Brahmanical ; and these two have kept pace together almost
as evenly as a pair of horses harnessed to a single carriage. In proportion as the
function practised by any given caste stands high or low in the scale of industrial
development, in the same proportion does the caste itself, impelled by the general
tone of society by which it is surrounded, approximate more nearly or more
remotely to the Brahmanical ideal of life. It is these two criteria combined which
have determined the relative ranks of the various castes in the Hindu social scale.
APPENDIX V 409
Outside the caste system altogether stand the few and' shattered remains of those
aboriginal tribes, out of which the whole series of caste was fashioned by slow
degrees, through the example and under the guidance of the Brahmanical priest-
hood. Had the Brahman never come into existence and had his arrogance
proved to be less omnipotent than it did, the various industrial classes would
never have become stereotyped into castes, and the nation would then have been
spared a degree of social disunion to which no parallel can be found in human
history. There seems to be no likelihood of caste being banished from Indian
soil until Brahmanism itself — the fans et origo mali — has died a natural death by
the rise of the scientific spirit, and the fallacy of its pretensions has become an
object of general scorn. As soon as the Brahman begins to disappear, the
rest will follow.
R, PI 26
SIR DENZIL IBBETSOISPS THEOKV.*
An old agnostic is said to have summoned up his philosophy in the following
words : — " The only thing I know is that I know nothing ;
The popular con- ^^ j ^^^ -^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ j .^^^ jj^^j ,. jjjg ^^^^^
ception of caste. \, , ,. ,. . . ^,^
express very exactly my own feehngs regardmg caste m the
Punjab. My experience is that it is almost impossible to make any statement
whatever regarding any one of the castes we have to deal with, absolutely true
as it may be as regards one part of the Province, which shall not presently be
contradicted with equal truth as regards the same people in some other district.
Yet I shall attempt to set forth briefly what seem to me the fundamental ideas
upon which caste is based ; and in doing so I shall attempt partly to explain why
it is that the institution is so extraordinarily unstable, and its phenomena so diverse
in different localities. What I propound in the following paragraphs is simply
my working hypothesis as it at present stands ; but I shall not stop to say so
as I write, though almost every proposition made must be taken subject to
limitations, often sufficiently obvious, and not unfrequently involved in some other
proposition made in the very next paragraph. My views are of little weight so
long as they are not illustrated and supported by instances drawn from actually
existing fact. Such instances I have in great abundance, and they will be found
in part in the detailed description of castes which follow this discussion. But I
have leisure neither to record all my evidence, nor to marshal what I have
recorded ; and I give my conception of caste with a crudeness of exposition
which lack of time forbids me to modify, not because I think that it is anything
even distantly approaching to the whole truth, but because I believe that it is
nearer to that truth than is the generally received theory of caste as I under-
stand it.
The popular and currently received theory of caste I take to consist of three
main articles : —
(i) that caste is an institution of the Hindu religion, and wholly peculiar to
that religion alone ;
(2) that it consists primarily of a fourfold classification of people in general
under the heads of Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Sudra ;
(3) that caste is perpetual and immutable, and has been transmitted from
generation to generation throughout the ages of Hindu history and
myth without the possibility of change.
Now I should doubtless be exaggerating in the opposite direction, but I think
that I should still be far nearer to the truth if, in opposition to the popular con-
ception thus defined, I were to say —
(i) that caste is a social far more than a religious institution ; that it has no
necessary connection whatever with the Hindu religion, further than that
under that religion certain ideas and customs common to all primitive
nations have been developed and perpetuated in an unusual degree ; and
* Report on the Census of the Punjab, 1881, pp. 172 — 6.
APPENDIX V 411
that conversion from Hinduism to Islam has not necessarily the slightest
effect upon caste :
(2) that there are Brahmans who are looked upon as outcasts by those who
under the fourfold classification would be classed as Sudras ; that there
is no such thing as a Vaisya now existing ; that it is very doubtful indeed
whether there is such a thing as a Kshatriya, and if there is, no two
people are agreed as to where we shall look for him ; and that Sudra has
no present significance save as a convenient term of abuse to apply to
soinebody else whom you consider lower than yourself ; while the number
of castes which can be classed under any one or under no one of the four
heads, according as private opinion may vary, is almost innumerable :
(3) that nothing can be more variable and more difficult to define than caste ;
and that the fact that a generation is descended from ancestors of any
given caste creates a presumption, and nothing more, that that genera-
tion also is of the same caste, a presumption liable to be defeated by an
infinite variety of circumstances.
Among all primitive peoples we find the race split up into a number of tribal
communities held together by the tie of common descent,
each tribe being self-contained and self-sufficing, and bound The hereditary na-
by strict rules of marriage and inheritance, the common ture of occupations,
object of which is to increase the strength and preserve
the unity of the tribe. There is as yet no diversity of occupation. Among more
advanced societies, where occupations have become differentiated, the tribes have
almost altogether disappeared ; and we find in their place corporate communities
or guilds held together by the tie of common occupation rather than of common
blood, each guild being self-contained and self-governed, and bound by strict
rules, the common object of which is to strengthen the guild and to confine to it
the secrets of the craft which it practises. Such were the trades-guilds of the
middle ages as we first meet with them in European history. But all modern
inquiry into their origin and earlier constitution tends to the conclusion — and
modern authorities on the development of primitive institutions are rapidly
accepting that conclusion — that the guild in its first form was, no less than the
tribe, based upon common descent ; and that the fundamental idea which lay at
the root of the institution in its inception was the hereditary nature of occupation.
Now here we have two principles, community of blood and community of occupa-
tion. So long as the hereditary nature of occupation was inviolable, so long as
the blacksmith's son must be, and nobody else could be, a blacksmith, the
two principles were identical. But the struggle for existence is too severe, the
conditions of existence too varied, and the character and capacity of individuals
too diverse to permit of this inviolability being long maintained ; and in any but the
most rudimentary form of society it must, like the socialist's dream of equal division
of wealth, cease to exist from the very instant of it? birth. And from the moment
when the hereditary nature of occupation ceases to be invariable and inviolable, the
two principles of community of blood and community of occupation become
antagonistic. The antagonism still continues. In every community which the world
has ever seen there have been grades of position and distinctions of rank ; and in
all societies these grades and distinctions are governed by two considerations,
descent and calling. As civilization advances and the ideas of the community
expand in more liberal growth, the latter is ever gaining in importance at the
expense of the former ; the question what a man is, is ever more and more taking
precedence of the question what his father was. But in no society that the world
has yet seen has either of these two considerations ever wholly ceased to operate ;
in no community has the son of the coal-heaver been born the equal of the son of
the nobleman, or the man who dies a trader been held in the same consideration
412 PEOPLE OF INDIA
as he who dies a statesman ; while in all the son has begun where the father left
off. The communities of India in whose midst the Hindu religion has been
developed are no exceptions to this rule ; but in their case special circumstances
have combined to preserve in greater integrity and to perpetuate under a more
advanced state of society than elsewhere the hereditary nature of occupation, and
thus in a higher degree than in other modern nations to render identical the two
principles of community of blood and community of occupation. And it is this
difference, a difference of degree rather than of kind, a survival to a later age of
an institution which has died out elsewhere rather than a new growth peculiar to
the Hindu nation, which makes us give a new name to the old thing and call caste
in India what we call position or rank in England.
The whole basis of diversity of caste is diversity of occupation. The old
division into Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya, Sudra, and the
Occupation th.e pri- Mlechchha or outcast, who is below the Sudra, is but a
mary basis of caste, division into the priest, the warrior, the husbandman, the
artisan, and the menial ; and the more modern develop-
ment which substituted trader for husbandman as the meaning of Vaisya or " the
people " did not alter the nature of the classification. William Priest, John King,
Edward Farmer, and James Smith are but the survivals in England of the four
varnas of Manu. But in India, which was priest-ridden to an extent unknown to
the experience of Europe even in the middle ages, the dominance of one special
occupation gave abnormal importance to all distinctions of occupation. The
Brahman who could at first claim no separate descent by which he should be
singled out from among the Aryan community, sought to exalt his office and
to propitiate his political rulers, who were the only rivals he had to fear, by
degrading all other occupations and conditions of life. Further, as explained in
the sections just referred to, the principle of hereditary occupation was to him as
a class one of the most vital importance. As the Brahmans increased in number,
those numbers necessarily exceeded the possible requirements of the laity so far
as the mere performance of priestly functions was concerned, while it became
impossible for them to keep up as a whole even the semblance of sacred learning.
Thus they ceased to be wholly priests, and a large proportion of them became
mere Levites. The only means of preserving its overwhelming influence to the
body at large was to substitute Levitical descent for priestly functions as the basis
of that influence, or rather perhaps to check the natural course of social evolution
which would have substituted the latter for the former ; and this they did by
giving the whole -sanction of religion to the principle of the hereditary nature of
occupation. Hence sprang that tangled web of caste restrictions and distinctions,
of ceremonial obligations, and of artificial purity and impurity, which has rendered
the separation of occupation from descent so slow and so difficult in Hindu society,
and which collectively constitutes what we know as caste. I do not mean that the
Brahmans invented the principle which they thus turned to their own purpose ; on
the contrary, I have said that it is found in all primitive societies that have out-
grown the most rudimentary stage. Nor do I suppose that they deliberately set to
work to produce any craftily designed effect upon the growth of social institutions.
But circumstances had raised them to a position of extraordinary power ; and
naturally, and probably almost unconsciously, their teaching took the form which
tended most effectually to preserve that power unimpaired.
Indeed, in its earlier form, neither caste nor occupation was even supposed in
India to be necessarily or invariably hereditary. It is often forgotten that there
are two very distinct epochs in the post-Vedic history of the Hindu nations, which
made respectively contributions of very different nature to that body of Hindu
scriptures which we are too apt to confuse under the generic name of the Shastras,
and which affected in very different manners the form of the Hindu religion. The
APPENDIX V 413
earlier is the epoch of the Brahmanas and the Upanishads, while Hinduism was a
single and comparatively simple creed, or at most a philosophical abstraction ;
and the later is the epoch of the Puranas and Tantras, with their crowded
Pantheon, their foul imaginings, their degraded idolatry, and their innumerable
sects. The former may be said to end with the rise, and the latter to begin with
the growing degeneracy of Buddhism. In the earlier Hinduism we iind that,
while caste distinctions were primarily based upon occupation, considerable license
in this respect was permitted to the several castes, while the possibility of the
individual rising from one caste to another was distinctly recognised. This was
the case even as late as the age of Manu, by which time the caste system had
assumed great strictness, and the cardinal importance of occupation had become
a prominent part of the Brahmanical teaching, though its hereditary nature had
not yet been so emphatically insisted on. It was in the dark ages of Hindu
history, about the beginning of an era during which Brahmanism was substituted
for Hinduism, and the religion became a chaos of impure and degraded doctrine
and sectariaa teaching, that the theory of the necessarily hereditary nature of
occupation seems to have taken its present form. In the earlier epoch the priest
was always a Brahman ; in the later the Brahman was always a priest.
But if occupation was not necessarily transmitted by descent, and if caste
varied with change of occupation in the earlier era of Hinduism, it is no less true
that this is the case in the present day ; though under caste restrictions as they
now stand, the change, in an upward direction at least, is infinitely slower and
more difficult than then, and is painfully effected by the family or tribe in the
course of generations instead of by the individual in the course of years. The
following pages will contain numerous instances of the truth of this assertion, and
the whole body of tribal and caste tradition in the Punjab supports it. I have not
always thought it necessary to state their traditions in discussing the various
castes ; and I have seldom stopped to comment on the facts. But the evidence,
imperfect as it is, will be found to possess no inconsiderable weight ; while the very
fact of the general currency of a set of traditions, groundless as they may be in
individual instances, shows that the theory of society upon which they are based
is at least not repugnant to the ideas and feelings and even practice of the people
who believe them. Indeed, for the purposes of the present enquiry it would
almost be allowable to accept traditional origin ; for though the tradition may not
be true, it might have been, or it would never have arisen. Instances of fall in
the social scale are naturally more often met with than instances of rise, for he
who has sunk recalls with pride his ancestral origin, while he who has risen
hastens to forget it.
But before proceeding to give specific instances of recent change of caste, I
must adopt a somewhat extended definition of occupation,
and must take a somewhat wider basis than that afforded by The political and
mere occupation, even so defined, as the foundation of caste, artificial basis of
In India the occupation of the great mass of what may
be called the upper or yeoman classes is the same. Setting aside the priests and
traders on the one hand and the artisans and menials on the other, we have left
the great body of agriculturists who constitute by far the larger portion of the
population. This great body of people subsists by husbandry and cattle-farming,
and so far their occupation is one and the same. But they are also the owners
and occupiers of the land, the holders of more or less compact tribal territories ;
they are overlords as well as villains ; and hence springs the cardinal distinc-
tion between the occupation of ruling and the occupation of being ruled. Where
the actual calling of every-day life is the same, social standing, which is all
that caste means, depends very largely upon political importance, whether
present or belonging to the recent past. There is the widest distinction between
414 PEOPLE OF INDIA
the dominant and the subject tribes ; and a tribe which has acquired political
independence in one part of the country, will there enjoy a position in the ranks of
caste which is denied it in tracts where it occupies a subordinate position.
Again, the features of the caste system which are peculiar to Brahmanical
Hinduism, and which have already been alluded to, have operated to create a
curiously artificial standard of social rank. There are certain rules which must be
observed by all at the risk of sinking in the scale. They are, broadly speaking,
that widow-marriage shall not be practised, that marriages shall be contracted
only with those of equal or nearly equal standing ; that certain occupations shall
be abstained from which are arbitrarily declared to be impure, such as growing or
selling vegetables, handicrafts in general, and especially working or trading in
leather and weaving ; that impure food shall be avoided ; and that no communion
shall be held with outcasts, such as scavengers, eaters of carrion or vermin, and
the like. There are other and similarly artificial considerations which affect social
standing, such as the practice of secluding the women of the family, the custom of
giving daughters in marriage only to classes higher than their own, and the like ;
but these are of less general application than those first mentioned. Many of
these restrictions are exceedingly irksome. It is expensive to keep the women
secluded, for others have to be paid to do their work ; it is still more expensive to
purchase husbands for them from a higher grade of society, and so forth ; and so
there is constant temptation to disregard these rules, even at the cost of some loss
of social position.
Thus we have as the extended basis of caste, first occupation, and within a
common occupation political prominence and social standing, the latter being
partly regulated by a set of very arbitrary rules which are peculiar to Indian caste,
and which are almost the only part of the system which is peculiar to it. It is
neither tautology nor false logic to say that social standing is dependent upon caste
and caste upon social standing, for the two depend each upon the other in different
senses. The rise in the social scale which accompanies increased political import-
ance will presently be followed by a rise in caste ; while the fall in the grades of
caste which a disregard of the arbitrary rules of the institution entails, will surely
be accompanied, by loss of social standing.
The Brahmans arelgenerally husbandmen as well as Levites, for their numbers
are so great that they are obliged to supplement the income
Instances of the mu- derived from their priestly office. But when a Brahman
tability of caste. drops his sacerdotal character, ceases to receive food or
alms as offerings acceptable to the gods, and becomes a
cultivator pure and simple, he also ceases to be a Brahman, and has to employ other
Brahmans as priests. Witness the Taga Brahmans of the Delhi division, who are
Tagas, not Brahmans, because they have " abandoned " {tag dena) their priestly
character. Indeed, in the hills the very practice of agriculture as a calling or at
least the actual following of the plough is in itself sufficient to deprive a Brahman
of all but the name of his caste ; for Mr. Lyall points out that in the following
quotation from Mr. Barnes, " ploughing '' should be read for " agriculture " or
" husbandry," there being very few even of the highest Brahman families, who
abstain from other sorts of fieldwork.
" It will afford a tolerable idea of the endless ramification of caste to follow out the
details of even the Sarsut tribe as established in these hills. The reader acquainted with
the country will know that Brahmans, though classed under a common appellation, are not
all equal. There are primarily two great distinctions in every tribe claiming to be of such
exalted origin as the Brahmans — vh. those who follow and those who abstain from agricul-
ture. This is the great touchstone of their creed. Those who have never defiled their hands
with the plough, but have restricted themselves to the legitimate pursuits of the caste, are
held to be pure Brahmans ; while those who have once descended to the occupation of
APPENDIX V 41S
husbandry retain indeed the name, but are no longer acknowledged by their brethren, nor
held in the same reverence by the people at large."
So again if a Brahman takes to handicrafts he is no longer a Brahman, as in
the case of the Thavis of the hills, some of whom were Brahmans in the last
generation. The Dharukras of Delhi are admittedly Brahmans who have within
the last few generations taken to widow-marriage ; and the Chamarwa Sadhs and
the whole class of the so-called Brahmans who minister to the outcast classes, are
no longer Brahmans in any respect beyond the mere retention of the name. The
Maha Brahman, so impure that in many villages he is not allowed to enter the
gates, the Dakaut and Gujrati, so unfortunate that other Brahmans will not accept
offerings at their hands, are all Brahmans, but are practically differentiated as
distinct castes by their special occupations. Turning to the second of Manu's four
great classes, we find the Mahajan a Mahajan in the hills so long as he is a
merchant, but a Kayasth as soon as he becomes a clerk ; while the Dasa Banya
of the plains who has taken to the practice of widow-marriage is a Banya only by
name and occupation, not being admitted to communion or intermarriage by the
more orthodox classes who bear the same title. The impossibility of fixing any
line between Rajputs on the one hand, and Jats, Gujars, and castes of similar
standing on the other, is fully discussed in the subsequent parts of this Chapter, in
the paragraphs on the Jat in general, on the Rajputs of the Eastern Hills, and on
the Thakar and Rathi. I there point out that the only possible definition of a
Rajput, in the Punjab at least, is he who, being the descendant of a family that
has enjoyed political importance, has preserved his ancestral status by strict
observance of the caste rules enumerated above. The extract there quoted from
Mr. Lyall's report sums up so admirably the state of caste distinctions in the hills
that I make no apology for repeating it. He says : —
Till lately the limits of caste do not seem to have been so immutably fixed in the hills as
in the plains. The Raja was the fountain of honour, and could do much as he liked. I
have heard old men quote instances within their memory in which a Raja promoted a Girth
to be a Rathi, and a Thakur to be a Rajput, for service done or money given ; and at the
present day the power of admitting back into caste-fellowship persons put under a ban for
some grave act of defilement is a source of income to the Jagirdar Rajas.
I believe that Mr. Campbell, the present Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, has asserted
that there is no such thing as a distinct Rajput stock ; that in former times, before caste
distinctions had become crystallized, any tribe or family whose ancestor or head rose to
royal rank became in time Rajpiit.
This is certainly the conclusion to which many facts point with regard to the Rajputs of
these hills. Two of the old royal and now essentially Rajput families of this district, viz.
Kotlehr and Bangahal, are said to be Brahman by original stock. Mr. Barnes says that in
Kangra the son of a. Rajpat by a low-caste woman takes place as a Rathi ; in Seoraj and
other places in the interior of the hills I have met families calling themselves Rajputs, and
growing into general acceptance as Rajputs, in their own country at least, whose only claim
to the title was that their father or grandfather was the offspring of a Kanetni by a foreign
Brahman. On the border line in the Himalayas, between Tibet and India Proper, any one
can observe caste growing before his eyes ; the noble is changing into a Rajput, the priest
into a Brahman, the peasant into a Jat ; and so on down to the bottom of the scale. The
same process was, I believe, more or less in course in Kangra proper down to a period not
very remote from to-day.
And Kangra is of all parts of the Punjab the place in which the proudest and
most ancient Rajpiit blood is to be found. As Captain Cunningham says in his
History of the Sikhs : " It may be assumed as certain that, had the conquering
Moghals and Pathans been without a vivid belief and an organised priesthood,
they would have adopted Vedism and become enrolled among the Kshatriya or
4i6 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Rajput races." In Sirsa we have instances of clans who were a few generations
ago accounted Jat being now generally classed as Rajputs, having meanwhile
practised greater exclusiveness in matrimonial matters, and having abandoned
widow-marriage ; while the reverse process is no less common. So the Chauhans
of Delhi are no longer recognised as Rajputs since they have begun to marry their
widows. Finally, we have the whole traditions of the Punjab tribes of the Jat and
Gujar status to the effect that they are descended from Rajputs who married below
them, ceased to seclude their women, or began to practise widow-marriage ; and
the fact that one and the same tribe is often known as Rajput, where it has, and
as Jat where it has not, risen to political importance.
But it is possible for Rajputs and Jats to fall still lower. The Sahnsars of
Hushyarpur were admittedly Rajputs till only a few generations ago, when they
took to growing vegetables, and now rank with Arains. Some of the Tarkhans,
Lobars, and Nais of Sirsa are known to have been Jats or Rajputs, who within
quite recent times have taken to the hereditary occupations of these castes ; and
some of the Chauhans of Karnal, whose fathers were born Rajputs, have taken to
weaving and become Shekhs. So too the landowning castes can rise. A branch
of the Wattu Rajputs of the Sutlej, by an affectation of peculiar sanctity, have in
the course of a few generations become Bodlas, and now deny their Rajpiit and
claim Qureshi origin ; and already the claim is commonly admitted. A clan of
Ahirs in Rewari has begun to seclude their women and abandon widow-marriage ;
they no longer intermarry with the other Ahirs, and will presently be reckoned a
separate caste ; and there is a Kharral family lately settled in Bahawalpur, who
have begun to affect peculiar holiness and to marry only with each other, and
their next step will certainly be to claim Arab descent. The process is going on
daily around us, and it is certain that what is now taking place is only what has
always taken place during the long ages of Indian History. The ease with which
Saiyads are manufactured is proverbial, and some of our highest Rajput tribes are
beginning in the Salt-range to claim Moghal or Arab origin. On the frontier the
dependence upon occupation of what there most nearly corresponds with caste, as
distinct from tribe, is notorious. A Machhi is a Machhi so long as he catches
fish, and a Jat directly he lays hold of a plough. There are no Rajputs because
there are no Rajas ; and those who are notoriously of pure Rajput descent are
Jats because they till the land.
Among the artisan and menial tribes the process is still more common, and
the chapter on this section of the community abounds with instances. One
Chamar takes to weaving instead of leather-working and becomes a Chamar-
Julaha ; presently he will be a Julaha pure and simple : another does the same
and becomes a Rangreta or a Bania : a Chuhra refuses to touch night-soil and
becomes a Musalli or a Kutana. Within the castes the same process is observable.
The Chandar Chamar will not eat or marry with the Jatia Chamar, because the
latter works in the hides of impure animals ; one section of the Kumhars will hold
no communion with another, because the latter burn sweepings as fuel ; a third
section has taken to agriculture and looks down upon both. In all these and
a thousand similar instances the sections are for all practical purposes distinct
castes, though the caste name, being based upon and expressive of the hereditary
occupation, is generally retained where the main occupation is not changed
Indeed, I have my doubts whether, setting aside the absolutely degrading occupa-
tions, such as scavengering, the caste does not follow the occupation in the case of
even each individual among these artisan and menial castes much more generally
than we suppose. We know next to nothing about their organisation, and I do
not pretend to make anything more than a suggestion. But it it is certain that
these lower castes have retained the organisation of the guild in extraordinar
completeness long after the organisation of the tribe or caste has almost completely
APPENDIX V 417
died out among the landowning classes whom they serve. And it may be, especially
in towns and cities, that this organisation is meant to protect the craft in the absence
of the bond of common descent, and that men belonging by birth to other castes
and occupations may, on "adopting a new occupation, be admitted to the fraternity
which follows it.
Thus we see that in India, as in all countries, society is arranged in strata
which are based upon differences of social or political mj,g nature and
importance, or of occupation. But here the classifica- evolution of the in-
tion is hereditary rather than individual to the persons stitution of the caste,
included under it, and an artificial standard is added
which is peculiar to caste and which must be conformed with on pain of loss of
position, while the rules which forbid social intercourse between castes of different
rank render it infinitely difficult to rise in the scale. So, too, the classification
being hereditary, it is next to impossible for the individual himself to rise ; it is
the tribe or section of the tribe that alone can improve its position, and this it can
do only after the lapse of several generations, during which time it must abandon
a lower for a higher occupation, conform more strictly with the arbitrary rules,
affect social exclusiveness or special sanctity, or separate itself after some similar
fashion from the body of the caste to which it belongs. The whole theory of
society is that occupation and caste are hereditary ; and the presumption that
caste passes unchanged to the descendants is exceedingly strong. But the pre-
sumption is one which can be defeated, and has already been and is now in process
of being defeated in numberless instances. As in all other countries and among
all other nations, the graduations of the social scale are fixed ; but society is not
solid but liquid, and portions of it are continually rising and sinking and changing
their position as measured by that scale ; and the only real difference between
Indian society and that of other countries in this respect is that the liquid is much
more viscous, the friction and inertia to be overcome infinitely greater, and the
movement therefore far slower and more difficult in the former than in the latter.
This friction and inertia are largely due to a set of artificial rules which have been
grafted on to the social prejudices common to all communities by the peculiar form
which caste has taken in the Brahmanical teachings. But there is every sign that
these rules are gradually relaxing. Sikhism did much to weaken them in the
centre of the Punjab, while they can now hardly be said to exist on the purely
Mahomedan frontier ; and I think, that we shall see a still more rapid change
under the influences which our rule has brought to bear upon the society of the
Province. Our disregard for inherited distinctions have already done something,
and the introduction of railways much more, to loosen the bonds of caste. It is
extraordinary how incessantly, in reporting customs, my correspondents note that
the custom or restriction is fast dying out. The liberty enjoyed by the people of
the Western Punjab is extending to their neighbours in the east, and especially the
old tribal customs are gradually fading away. There cannot be the slightest
doubt that in a few generations the materials for a study of caste as an institution
will be infinitely less complete than they are even now.
Thus, if my theory be correct, we have the following steps in the process by
which caste has been evolved in the Punjab — (i) the tribal divisions common to
all primitive societies ; (2) the guilds based upon hereditary occupation common
to the middle life of all communities ; (3) the exaltation of the priestly office to a
degree unexampled in other countries ; (4) the exaltation of the Levitical blood by
a special insistence upon the necessarily hereditary nature of occupation ; (5) the
preservation and support of this principle by the elaboration from the theories of
the Hindu creed or cosmogony of a purely artificial set of rules, regulating
marriage and intermarriage, declaring certain occupations and foods to be impure
and polluting, and prescribing the conditions and degree of social intercourse
418 PEOPLE OF INDIA
permitted between the several castes. Add to this the pride of social rank and
the pride of blood which are natural to man, and which alone could reconcile a
nation to restrictions at once irksome from a domestic and burdensome from
a material point of view ; and it is hardly to be wondered at that caste should
have assumed the rigidity which distinguishes it in India.
M. SENARTS THEORY*
Longtemps on a cru, sur le t^moignage de Platon et d'H^rodote, que I'Egypte
aurait €t€ r^gie par le systfeme des castes. C'est une vue abandonnde aujourd'hui
par les juges les plus autoris^s. Elle parait d^cid^ment contredite par les
monumens indigenes. Les Grecs, peu accoutum^s k de vastes organismes \i€x€-
ditaires relids par le privilege du rang ou la communautd de la fonction, pouvaient
aisdment, Ik ou ils en rencontraient des types plus ou moins stricts, en exagerer
I'importance ou I'dtendue. Jusqu'k present, I'Inde a seule rdvdl^ un regime uni-
verse! des castes, au sens ou nous I'avons constat^ et ddfini. Tout au plus trouve-
t-on ailleurs des traces accidentelles, des germes d'institutions analogues ; elles ne
sont nulle part gdn^ralisdes ni coordonndes en systfeme.
La Grfece a connu, k Lacdddmone et ailleurs, plusieurs cas des fonctions et des
mdtiers hdrdditaires. Malgrd les incertitudes qui en obscurcissent I'interprdtation,
les noms que portent les quatres tribus {phyli) ioniennes de I'Attique sont bien des
noms professionnels : soldats, chevriers, artisans, f Ce ne sont assur^ment pas des
castes. L'exemple prouve au moins que la tradition aryenne pouvait, sous 1 empu^e
d'une situation favorable, incliner vers la caste. L'enseignement est bon &, retenir.
Un fait social qui domine un pays immense, qui s'enchevStre dans tout son
pass^, a ndcessairement plus d'une cause. A I'enfermer dans une deduction
unique, trop precise, on s'dgare k coup sClr. Des courans si puissans sont faits
d'affluens nombreux. L'explication vraie doit, j'en suis convaincu, faire sa part k
chacun des agens qu'on a tour k tour poussds au premier plan, dans un esprit trop
systematique et trop exclusif. II est bien d'autres pays ou une race immigrante
s'est trouvde juxtaposde k des occupans qu'elle a vaincus et d^poss^d^s, et cette
situation n'y a pas fait nattre la caste. D'autres populations ont connu de fortes
distinctions de classes, et la caste leur est demeur^e ^trangfere. La theocratic
s'accommode d'autres cadres. II faut done que le regime rdsulte dans I'lnde de
Paction combinde de plusieurs facteurs. J'espfere avoir discern^ les principaux.
Tichons d'embrasser d'un coup d'ceil le raccourci de cette histoire.
Nous prenons les 4ryens k leur entree dans I'Inde. lis vivent sous I'empire des
vieilles lois communes d toutes les branches de la race. Ils sont divisds en peu-
plades, clans et families : plus ou moins larges, les groupes sont dgalement gou-
vern^s par une organisation corporative dont les traits gdndraux sont pour tons
identiques, dont le lien est une consanguinity de plus en plus ^troite. L'slge de
r^galite pure et simple de clan k clan, de tribu k tribu, est pass^. Le prestige mili-
taire et le prestige religieux ont commence leur oeuvre. Certains groupes,
rehaussds par I'dclat des prouesses guerriferes, fiers d'une descendance plus brillante
ou mieux assurde, enrichis plus que d'autres par la fortune des armes, se sont
solidarisds en une classe nobiliaire qui revendique le pouvoir. Les rites religieux
se sont compliquds au point de r^clamer, soit pour I'exicution des cdrdmonies, soit
pour la composition des chants, une habiletd spdciale et une preparation technique :
une classe sacerdotale est nde, qui appuie ses pretentions sur les genealogies plus
ou moins legendaires qui rattachent ses branches k des sacrificateurs illustres du
passe. Le reste des Sryens est confondu dans une categoric unique au sain de
• Senart, Les Castes dans I'Inde, pjj. 243-257.
t Schbmann, Grkch. Alterth., ed. 1861, I, p. 327 suiv.
APPENDIX V 419
laquelle les divers groupes se meuvent dans leur autonomie et sous leurs lois
corporatives. Des notions religieuses dominaient d^S I'origine toute la vie ; le
sacerdoce dejk puissant double ici le prestige et la rigueur des scrupules
religieux.
Les aryens s'avancent dans leur nouveau domaine. lis se heurtent k une race
de couleur fonc^e, inf^rieure en culture, qu'ils refoulent. Cette opposition, le souci,
de leur sdcurite, le dddain des vaincus, exaltent chez les vainqueurs I'exclusivisme
natif, renforcent toutes les croyances et tous les prdjugds qui protfegent la puret^
des sectionnements entre lesquels ils se r^partissent. La population autochtone
est rejetee dans une masse confuse que des liens de subordination assez liches
rattachent seuls h. ses maitres. Les id^es religieuses qu'apportent les envahisseurs
y descendent plus ou moins avant, jamais assez pour la relever k leur niveau.
Cependant, en s'dtendant sur de vastes espaces ou leurs etablissemens ne sont
gufere cantonnds par aucunes limites naturelles, les envahisseurs se dispersent ;
dbranlds par les accidens de la lutte, les groupemens primitifs se disjoignent.
La rigueur du principe gendalogique qui les unissait en est compromise : les
trongons, pour se reformer, obdissent aux rapprochements gdographiques ou k
d'autres convenances.
Peu k peu se sont imposdes les ndcessitds d'une existence moins mouvante.
C'est dans des villages d'industrie pastorale et agricole que se fixe la vie devenue
plus sddentaire ; et c'est d'abord par parentis qu'ils se fondent ; car les lois
de la famille et du clan conservent une autoritd souveraine ; on continue d'observer
les usages traditionnels que sanctionne la religion. Les habitudes plus fixes
ddveloppent les besoins et les metiers d'une civilisation qui est mure pour plus
d'exigences. Les corps d'etat sont k leur tour enveloppds dans le rdseau, soit
que la communautd de village entraine la communautd d'occupation, soit que les
reprdsentans disperses d'une meme profession dans des lieux assez voisins
obdissent k une ndcessitd impdrieuse en se modelant sur le seul type d'organisation
usitd autour d'eux.
Avec le temps deux faits se sont accuses ; des melanges plus ou moins avouds
se sont produits entre les races ; les notions iryennes de puretd ont fait leur
chemin dans cette population hybride et jusque dans les populations purement
aborigines. De Ik deux ordres de scrupules qui multiplient les sectionnements,
suivant I'impuretd plus ou moins forte, soit de la descendance, soit des occupations.
Si les principes anciens de la vie familiale se perpetuent, les facteurs de groupe-
ments se diversifient: fonction, religion, voisinage, d'autres encore, k cot6 du
principe primitif de la consanguinity dont ils prennent plus ou moins le masque.
Les groupes s'acroissent et s'entre-croisent. Sous la double action de leurs
traditions propres et des iddes qu'elles empruntent k la civilisation 4ryenne, les
tribus aborigines elles-memes, au fur et k mesure qu'elles renoncent k une vie
Isolde et sauvage, accdlferent I'afflux des sectionhemens nouveaux. La caste existe
d^s lors. On voit comment elle s'est, dans ses diverses degradations, substitute
lentement au rdgime familial dont elle est I'hdritifere.
Un pouvoir politique eflt pu subordonner ces organismes aux ressorts d'un
systfeme rdgulier. NuUe constitution politique ne se ddgage. L'idde mime n'en
nait pas. Comment s'en dtonner ? La puissance sacerdotale n'y pent etre
favorable, car elle en serait diminude ; ou son action est trhs forte et trfes
soutenue ; elle paralyse meme dans I'aristocratie militaire I'exercice du pouvoir.
Le relief du pays ne constitue pas de noyaux naturels de concentration ; toute
limite est ici ilottante. La vie pastorale a longtemps maintenu un esprit de
tradition severe ; aucun gout vif de Paction ne I'entame. La population vaincue
est nombreuse ; refoulde plus qu'absorbde, ^Ue est envahie lentement par la propa-
gande sacerdotale plut6t que soumise par une brusque conquete. Avec quelques
tempdramens elle garde, Ik surtout ou elle se cantonne et s'isole, beaucoup
420 PEOPLE OF INDIA
de son organisation ancienne. Par sa masse qu'elle interpose, par I'exemple
de ses institutions trfes rudimentaires, par la facility mSme avec laquelle ces
institutions se fondant dans I'organisation assez sommaire des immigrans, elle
oppose un obstacle de plus k la constitution d'un pouvoir politique veritable. Done
nul rudiment d'Etat.
Dans cette confusion, la classe sacerdotale a seule, en d^pit de ses fractionne-
mens, gard^ un solide esprit de corps ; seule elle est en possession d'un pouvoir
tout moral, mais tres efficace. Elle en use pour affermir et pour ^tendre ses
privileges ; elle en use aussi pour etablir, sous sa supr^matie, una sorta d'ordra
et da cohesion. Elle g^ndralise et codifie I'^tat de fait en un systfema iddal qu'elle
s'efforce de faire passer an loi. Cast le regime Idgal da la caste. Elle y amalgama
la situation actuelle avec les traditions tenaces du,pass^ ou la hidrarchie des classes
a jetd les fondamens de sa puissance tant accrue depuis.
Sorti d'un mdlange des pretentions arbitrairas et des faits authentiques, ce
systfeme deviant k son tour une force. Non saulemant les brihmanas la portent
comme un dogme dans les parties du pays dont I'assimilation se fait k une date
tardive ; partout, grS.ce k I'autoritd immense qui s'attacha k ses patrons, il rdagit
par les id^as sur la pratique. L'iddal sp^culatif tend k s'imposer comme la rfegle
stncte du devoir. Mais, des faits k la thdorie, il y avail trop loin pour qu'ils aient
pu jamais se fondre complfetemant.
Ce qui nous int^rasse c'ast la chemin qu'a suivi I'institution dans sa croissance
spontande. Je puis done m'arrStar ici.
La caste est, k mon sens, le prolongement normal das antiques institutions
aryennes, se modelant k travars las vicissitudes qua leur pr^paraient las conditions
et le milieu qu'elles rancontrferent dans I'lnde. Elle serait aussi inexplicable sans
ce fond traditionnel qu'elle serait in intelligible sans les alliages qui s'y sont
crois^s, sans las circonstances qui I'ont pdtrie.
Que Ton m'antende bien ! Je ne pretends pas soutenir que la rdgima des castes,
tel qua nous I'observons aujourd'hui, avec les sections infinies, da nature et de
consistance diversas qu'il embrasse, ne contienne qua le d^veloppement logiqua,
puremant organique, des seuls dMmens iryens primitifs. Des groupes d'origine
varide, de structure variable, s'y son introduits de tout temps et s'y multiplient
encore : clans d'envahisseurs qui jalonnent la route des conquetes successives ;
tribus aborigines sorties tardivement de leur isolemant farouche ; fractionnemens
accidantels soit de castas propremant dites, soit des groupes assimilds. II y a
plus ; ces melanges qui, aggrav^s de combinaisons multiples, donnent k la caste
da nos jours une physionnomie si ddconcertante, si insaisissable, se sont, k n'en
pas douter, produits da bonne haure. S'ils ont 6t6 en s'accusant, ils ont com-
menc^ d^s I'^poque oii le regime se formait. Je I'ai dit d^jk, je le r^pfete k
dessain : k condenser en une formule sommaire une conclusion gdndrale, on
risque de paraitre outrer son principe ; effort de precision ou seduction de
nouveautd, on risque de fausser, en I'dtendant k I'exc^s, une pensda juste. Je
ne voudrais pas que I'on me soupgonnSt d'un entrainement contre lequel je suis
en garde.
Ce que j'estime, c'est que, qualques influences qu'ils aient pu subir du dehors, quel-
ques troubles qu'aiant apportds las hasards de I'histoire, las iryens de I'lnde ont tird
de leur propre fonds les dldments essantiels de la caste, telle qu'ils I'ont pratiqude,
congue et finalement coordonnde. Si le regime sous lequel I'lnda a v6c\i n'est ni
une organisation puremant ^conomiqua des mdtiars, ni un chaos barbare des tribus
et des races dtrangferes et hostilas, ni una simple hidrarchie des classes mais un
mdlange de tout cela, unifida par I'inspiration commune qui domina, dans leur
fonctionnement, tous les groupes, par la communautd des idits et des prdjugds
caractdristiques qui les rapprochent, las divisent, fixent entre eux les prdsdancas
cela vient de ce que la constitution familiale, survivant k travers toutes les
APPENDIX V 421
Evolutions, gouvernant les aryens d'abord, puis pdndtrant avec leur influence et
s'imposant m6me aux groupemens d'origine inddpendante, a 6t6 la pivot d'une
ente transformation.
Qu'elle ait 6t6 traversEe d'dldmens h^tdrogfenes, je n'ai garde de I'oublier.
D'ailleurs une fois achevEe dans ses traits essentials, alia a, cala va sans dire,
comma tous les systfemas vieillissans oii la tradition na se retempe plus dans une
conscience vivante das origines, subi Paction da I'analogia. Les principas qu'on a
cru y ddcouvrir, I'arbitraira mSme, armd de faux pr^taxtes y ont fait leur oeuvre.
Pour gtre accidantallas ou secondairas, cas alterations n'ont pas laissd qua de jater
quelqua ddsarroi dans la physionomia das faits. Je n'y insiste pas capandant. On
an ratrouvara au besoin las sources dans les details que j'ai eu Toccasion da
signaler en passant.
MSma k nous anfarmer dans la pErioda de formation, combian nous souhaitarions
da fixer das dates ! Ce que j'ai dit de la tradition littdraira axpliquera qua je n'en
aia pas das precises k offrir. Das institutions anciennas na s'imprfegnent que par
progressions insansibles d'un esprit nouveau ; des mouvements qui pauvant, suivant
las circonstances, marcher d'un pas in^gal dans das regions diverses, na sa
manifestant dans les t^moignagas que lorsque I'ordre antdrieur est devanu tout k
fait m^connaissable. lis sont obscurs parce qu'ils sont lents. lis ne supportent
pas de dates rigourauses. Tout au plus pourrait-on se flatter de determiner k quel
moment la systfeme brahmanique, qui r^git thdoriquement la caste, a ragu sa forma
darnifera. La pretention sarait encore trop ambitieuse. Nous pouvons nous an
consoler ; nous n'en sarions pas beaucoup plus avancds, s'il est vrai que ca syst^ma
rdsuma Tid^al de la casta dominante plus qu'il na reflate la situation vraie.
MSme en ce qui concerne le Vdda, la valaur des indices qu'il apporta n'ast
rien moins que definia. II faudrait savoir s'il epuisa bien I'ensembia des faits
contamporains, s'il las rend integralement et fid^lemant. Cast ce dont ja n'astime
pas du tout que nous soyons certains. Ce qui est sur c'ast qu'on y voit saillir
encore an un plein relief catta hidrarchie de classes qui s'est plus tard rdsolue dans
le regime des castas. II est pourtant indubitable que, dhs la pdriode vddique, les
causes avaient commence d'agir qui, par laur action combinea et suivie, davaiant
sur le vieux tronc aryen greffer un ordre nouveau.
Les iryans de I'Inde at les Aryans du monde classiqua partent das mSmes
premisses. Combian les consequences sont de part et d'autra differantes !
A Torigina, les mSmas groupes, gouvarnes par les mimas croyances, les mgmas
usages. En Grece at en Italia, ces patitas societes s'associent et s'organisent.
Ellas s'etagant en un syst^me ordonne. Chaqua groupa conserve dans sa sph&ra
d'action sa plaina autonomie ; mais la federation suparieura que constitua la cite
embrasse les inter^ts communs et regularise Taction commune. Le chaos prend
forme sous la main des Gracs. Les organismas disjoints se soudant an una unite
plus large. Au fur et a mesura qu'elle s'acheve, I'idee nouvalle qui en est
I'dme latente, I'idee politique s'ebauche. Comme la caste, la cite est issue de la
constitution primitive commune ; jatee dans la moule das memes regies raligieuses,
des monies traditions, mais inspirea par das necassites nouvellas, alia degaga un
principe nouveau d'organisation. Ella se montre capable de s'eiargir, da s'affranchir
das barri&ras qui ont soutenu, mais aussi contenu ses premiers pas. Plus tard, elle
suffira, an se transformant, aux besoins des revolutions de mceurs et de pouvoir
plus profondes.
Dans TInde la caste continue les antiques coutumes ; elle las deyeloppe meme
k plusiaurs egards dans laur ligne logiqua ; mais elle pard qualqua chose de
I'impulsion qui avait cree les groupes primitifs et elle n'en renouvalla pas Tesprit.
Des notions divarsas se melant ou se substituent ici au lien genealogique qui avait
noue les premieres socidtes. En se modifiant, en devanant castes, alias na trouvent
pas en ellas-memes de principe regulataur ; ellas s'antrecroisent, chacune isoiea
422 PEOPLE OF INDIA
dans son autonomie jalouse. Le cadre est immense, sans limites prdcises, sans vie
organique ; masse confuse de socidtds independantes, courbdes sous un niveau
commun.
La langue classique de I'lnde se distingue des langues cong^nferes par une
singularity frappante. Le verbe fini a peu de place dans la phrase ; la pens^e s'y
ddroule en composes longs, de relation souvent ind^cise. Au lieu d'une construction
syntactique solide ou le dessin s'accuse, oil les incidences se ddtachent elles-mSmes
en propositions nettement arretdes, la phrase ne connait guhie qu'une structure
moUe oA les ^Idments de la pens^e, simplement juxtaposes, manquent de relief.
Les croyances religieuses de I'Inde ne se pr^sentent gufere en dogmes positifs.
Dans les lignes flottantes d'un panth^isme mal ddfini, les oppositions et les diver-
gences ne se soul^vent un moment que pour s'ecrouler comme un remous instable
dans la masse mouvante. Les contradictions se resolvent vite en un syncrdtisme
conciliant ou s'^nerve la vigueur des schismes. Une orthodoxie accommodante
couvre toutes les dissidences de son large manteau. NuUe part de doctrine cat^-
gorique, lide intransigeante. Sur le terrain social, un ph^nomfene analogue nous
appar4it dans le regime de la caste. Partout le meme spectacle d'impuissance
plastique.
Quelque sfeve qu'il empruntde aux circonstances extdrieures et historiques,
c'est bien le fruit de I'esprit hindou. L'organisation sociale de I'Inde est k la
structure des citds antiques ce qu'est un po&me hindou k une trag^die grecque.
Aussi bien dans la vie pratique que dans I'art, le gdnie hindou se montre rarement
capable d'organisation, c'est-k-dire de mesure, d'harmonie. Dans la caste tout son
effort s'est ^puisd k maintenir, k fortifier un rdseau de groupes fermes, sans action
commune, sans reaction reciproque, ne reconnaissant finalement d'autre moteur
que I'autorit^ sans contrepoids d'une classe sacerdotale qui a absorb^ toute la
direction des esprits. Sous le niveau du brahmanisme, les castes s'agitent, comme
les Episodes se heurtent d^sordonnds dans la vague unitd du rdcit dpique. II suffit
qu'un systfeme artificiel en masque theoriquement le ddcousu.
Les destinies de la caste sont, k y bien regarder, un chapitre instructif de la
psychologie de I'Inde.
APPENDIX VI
SIR HENRY COTTON AND OTHERS ON
KULIN POLYGAMY
To THE Editor of " The Times."
Sir, — More important still, though perhaps not so intentionally offensive, is the
review in your Literary Supplement of Mr. Oman's book on " The Brahmans,
Theists, and Muslims of India." I have not yet seen this book, but my impression
of it derived from a review by Sir Alfred Lyall in the Nation is very different from
that put forward by your reviewer. I cannot believe that Mr. Oman's work is a
mere richauffi of the onslaught on Hinduism which was elaborated by Mr. James
Mill and by the missionary Ward at the beginning of the last century. That is
the impression your review conveys and your leading article repeats in stronger
language. Mill's, Ward's, and Wilford's attacks on Hinduism were replied to at
the time they were made, but, whatever truth they may have then contained, every
one who knows anything of the subject is aware that the abominations to which
you refer, and especially the privileges of the Kulin Brahmans, "including the
most outrageous and degrading form of polygamy," have no existence at the pre-
sent day. You go so far as to say that " it is a notable fact that the spread of
enlightenment as we conceive it among educated Hindus has not been accompanied
by any serious attempt to do away with social anomalies such as child marriages,
the seclusion of child widows, or the abominations practised by the Kulin
Brahmans." I reply that the very contrary is the fact. So-called child marriages
among the educated classes are now of the rarest occurrence, and polygamy
among Kulin Brahmins is absolutely non-existent. My personal experience
extends over a period of 40 years, and I never heard of a case of Kulin polygamy.
The practice had died out before I went to India. I do not know whether
Mr. Oman says it still exists. I doubt whether he has any personal knowledge of
Bengal, and in any case I deprecate in the strongest possible manner the tone and
character of the observations in your leading article on this subject, which are
apparently based on Mr. Oman's book.
I am. Sir, yours faithfully,
HENRY COTTON.
Dieppe, September \d,th, 1907.
Sir, — While I desire to avoid even the appearance of controversy on matters
capable of argument, I would ask permission to correct one serious misapprehen-
sion on a matter of fact that is to be found in Sir Henry Cotton's letter as printed
in your issue of the 24th. He says, " Polygamy among Kulin Brahmans is abso-
lutely non-existent. My personal experience extends over a period of 40 years, and
I never heard of a case of Kulin polygamy." Sir Henry Cotton has been very
fortunate in his experience. Mine has been painfully different. I went to India
after him ; nevertheless, during my career in the Indian Civil Service, I heard of
numerous instances of Kulin polygamy both in Bengal and (under another name)
in Bihar. I have been personally acquainted with men who practised it, and have
424 PEOPLE OF INDIA
discussed the question with them. About the year 1878 I was connected with a
movement to stop it, which was got up by natives who were not Kulins, and which
was admittedly a failure. I have before me a book entitled " The Brahmans and
Kayasthas of Bengal," written by Babu Girindrandth Dutt, who, as his name implies,
is a Bengali. It was published in 1906, after appearing in serial form in a Calcutta
magazine. The author in his preface says, "I have described at length the
fictitious origin and the pernicious effects of this vicious system {i.e. Kulinism).'
Elsewhere he says, "The only possible and practical means to extirpate the
manifold vicious effects of Kulinism — e.g., polygamy, ruinous marriage demands,
matrimonial difficulties, etc., is to abolish the cause, Kulinism, from every section
of the community."
I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
GEORGE A. GRIERSON.
Camberley, September 2^tA, 1907.
Sir, — I desire to offer my experience of Kulin polygamy in contradiction of Sir
Henry Cotton'-s statement. I entered the Bengal Civil Service about 12 years
before Sir H. Cotton, and my service in Bengal overlapped his in its termination.
In 1866 the Government of Bengal appointed a committee to inquire into and
report on Kulin Polygamy. It was thus moved by a learned Brahmin Pundit, at
whose instance a few years before the Legislature had passed the Hindu Widows'
Remarriage Act. Sir Charles Hobhouse, who is still alive, was president of that
committee, and I was a member and its secretary. Our inquiries showed that
Kulin polygamy was very prevalent in Bengal, and that there were instances of
Brahmins having nearly 100 wives, many of whom they had never seen since their
marriage with them as girls. That was about the year before Sir H. Cotton came
to Bengal. His statement, therefore, that " in my personal experience, extending
over a period of 40 years, I never heard of a case of Kulin polygamy " shows
singular ignorance of the social habits and customs of the country amongst the
people of which he so long lived. His experience is evidently derived from asso-
ciation with Bengalis whose Western education no doubt may have tended to
induce them to abandon it. But it would not be to such men that this pernicious
system would have much attraction. Profit in a pecuniary sense, and not sensuality,
is its stronghold. The father of a girl is obliged by Hindu law and the custom of
the country to marry her before she attains puberty ; she must marry in her own
caste ; and he has to buy a suitable husband for her. Kulin polygamy, it can be
easily understood, appeals to Brahmins of the mendicant and priestly classes of
small means. Education may have done much to reduce its sphere ; but educa-
tion has not reached such classes, and obviously they will be the last to come
within its influence.
I do not desire to attempt to discuss or explain at length the marriage system
amongst Hindus in Bengal ; but I would point out that though education may have
done something to mitigate its evils, it cannot claim to have done much to reduce
the rates payable in the marriage market. The usual rate demanded by one who
has taken the degree of Bachelor of Laws in the Calcutta University is, I was
credibly informed not many years ago, Rs. 10,000, or nearly ^700. It may be
asked. Why does not the Congress which professes to act as a body anxious to
reform all matters to the benefit of the people of India apply itself to such social
matters of the highest importance ? Why does it not commence its work at home
before it stirs up matters of political controversy ? The answer which suggests
itself is obvious. Because it does not suit the aims of its leaders. Alas ! that it
should be so.
September 27t;., 1907. "' "^^ P^^NSEP.
APPENDIX VI 42s
Sir, — Sir Henry Prinsep misapprehends my letter to you on this subject. I
never said that when I went to India 40 years ago there were no survivors of the
old system of Kulin polygamy. On the contirary there were many, and Vidyasagar's
committee appointed in 1866, to which Sir Henry Prinsep refers, proved the fact.
My point was that during my time I never heard of a case of polygamous marriage
being contracted among Kulins. I know it was common enough in old days. But
I say that the practice for many years past has completely died out. There may,
of course, have been isolated cases, but I am sure they are exceedingly few,
and I never heard of one. Sir Henry Prinsep does not say that he has heard of
any cases since 1866, and he admits that educated Bengalis have abandoned the
practice. After all, the last word on this subject cannot be spoken by English
officials, however great their experience may be, but niust be said by the Indian
members of the community concerned ; and I am glad to think that the
prominence given by you to this correspondence in your columns will lead to
that result.
I am, yours faithfully,
HENRY COTTON.
October i, 1907.
\_Editorial Note. — In his letter to us of September 14 Sir Henry Cotton wrote: — " The
practice [Kulin polygamy] had died out before I went to India." Yet, 'as Sir Henry
Prinsep pointed out in his letter to us of September 27, the practice was still so prevalent
about the time Sir H. Cotton went out to India that a committee had only recently been
appointed to inquire into it.]
Sir, — Having very recently come from India and having a life-long acquaint-
ance with that country, I am perhaps able to throw some light on the subject of
Kulinism, which is being discussed just now in the columns of your paper. It is
hard to kill a social custom when bound up and interwoven with the material
interest of still a very influential class. Polygamy among Kulin Brahmans is
certainly not dead. It is not as rampant as it was, say, half a century ago ; but
it still flourishes, or is still in vogue, in certain dark corners of the two provinces of
Bengal and Behar, chiefly among the more bigoted classes of Hindus, who adhere
to the abhorrent practice with a grim steadfastness which can scarcely be recon-
ciled with the advanced and progressive state of certain other sections of Hindu
society. Of course, the reason for the upkeep of this hateful custom is the
burning desire of the parents (not uncommon in other parts of the world) 'to get
their daughter married to a man on a somewhat higher social level, as regards the
scale of castes, which is again bound up with their religion.
Dr. G. A. Grierson (than whom I scarcely know of a higher authority either in
Indian literature or social practices and customs as they exist in the present day) is
quite accurate in saying that polygamy is still prevalent among the people of
Bengal and Behar — in Behar among the Ojhas, Dubes, and Chaubes principally.
I knew of an Ojha family (a fairly well-to-do zemindar) whose three daughters,
varying in age from 19 to 14 years, were married to one Brahman of about treble
the age of the eldest girl. When I expostulated with the father, he said he could
not possibly get his daughters married to husbands on a lower scale of caste, as it
would for ever ruin the standing of his family, and it was hopeless to find a
younger man, as it would be equally ruinous to his family from a pecuniary point
of view.
Among the Bengalis too, who are more advanced, in a general sense, than the
Beharis, fear of lowering the caste status still holds a tyrannical sway. A father
who is a bigoted Hindu would not, if he can possibly avoid it, allow his daughter
R, PI 27
426 PEOPLE OF INDIA
to get married to one whose status in caste is lower than his ; he would much
rather get her wedded to a polygamous husband.
I am, Sir, yours faithfully,
JOHN CHRISTIAN.
Sir,— Referring to the letters of Sir Henry Cotton, Dr. George Grierson, and
" A retired Bengal Official " in The Times of the 24th, 27th, and 28th ultimo,
respectively, I would like to add that the crushing reply to Sir Henry Cotton
is the official report on " Kulinism " in the Gazette of India of February 7, 1867,
signed by S. Ghosal, C. P. (now Sir Charles) Hobhouse, H. T. (now Sir Henry)
Prinsep, D. Mitra, J.'K. Mookerjea, I. C. Surma, and R. Tagore. Of these five
Bengali signatories the last three (including the Theistic reformer Ramnath
Tagore) add the statement that " Kulinism " — i.e. the Kula-dharma or " (religious)
observance of race (purity) " — prevailed to a less extent in 1867 than a few years
previously ; but even with this qualification the report is an all-sufficing and
dramatically effective answer to Sir Henry Cotton. My day in India began
13 years before his, and was all spent in Western Jndia, and I always hesitate to
speak of anything in India, beyond the Mahratta Ditch, and I generally keep
strictly within " the Manor of Grenawic " ; but even in far-off Bombay that report
made an immense impression ; and, surely, it is a record in Lethe'd obliviousness
that Sir Henry Cotton, who, I see from the " India Office List," landed in Calcutta
October 29, 1867, should never once "have heard of a case of Kulinism." I was
possibly more interested in the report because some years earlier in the widely —
in India — ^regenerative sixties I was visited by a wealthy Vaishnava, as a repre-
sentative of other wealthy Vaishnavas, all of the Vallabhacharya sub-sect, who,
with passionate insistence, demanded the exposure of an immemorial religious rite
of the sect, which gradually, under the influence of Western ideals, had become
intolerable to them as husbands and, in all " the thoughts and intents of the
heart," English gentlemen. This was, indeed, the beginning of the great action
for libel the High Priest of the Vallabhacharya was at length compelled, by
the force of public opinion, to bring against The Times of India; and Sir
Joseph Arnold's memorable judgment in the case, with Mr. Chisholm Anstey's
speech for the plaintiff, and the evidence given, is the richest storehouse known
to me of the authenticated facts of esoteric Hinduism accessible to English
readers.
But what I desire, with your indulgence, to accentuate is not this latest and
most bewildering example of Sir Henry Cotton's " lethargized discernings," but
the inconsiderateness and unreasonableness of all three of your distinguished
correspondents under comment in tacitly stigmatizing the Kula-dharma as out-
rageous and degrading because this peculiar form of regulated polygamy happens
to be opposed to our own conventions on such relations. " Kulinism " is not with
the Hindus, as with us, a " mystery of iniquity," but a " mystery of godliness " ; and
so long as it has the consent of their consciences, and is regarded as a high and
religious obligation, it cannot be, and is not, morally degrading to them, although
it does not tend to their physical elevation, and the development of their virility
as the one sure foundation of the manly virtues. Therefore, while always speaking
and writing my mind freely in private to Hindus on such matters as the rai-mandli
of Western India and the Kula-dharma of Eastern Bengal, I have never in public
spoken or written in « moral indignation " on such freaks in morality or rather
sociology. What is the history of " Kulinism " .? The Sanscrit word Kula dipt
to Kul, means "race," "tribe," "family," and if not allied to, may be compared
with, the words Kelt or Celt and Cul-dee (" the family," i.e. priest of God) ; and the
word Ktdina or Kuhn means, primarily, « of good family " ; while Kula-dharma
APPENDIX VI 427
means primarily a binding observance, of gradually growing religious import,
arismg out of the natural instinct to preserve in pristine purity the blue Aryan blood
of that section of the Bengali Brahmans who, on quite inadequate grounds, regard
themselves as superior to all other Brahmans, not only in Bengal, but throughout
India, in the integrity of their illustrious descent. These primitive Kulin of Bengal
are represented by the widely, and, let it be added, well-famed family names of
Bonnerjee, Chatterjee, GanguUy, and Mookerjea ; while the great family names of
Bose, Dutt, Ghose, and Mitra represent the Hindus who became attached to these
Kulin families on their original immigration into Anga-Banga. And these Kulin
are most honourable men ; so that the word Kulin has at last come to be an
honorific title, the equivalent of our " The Honourable," or " The Right Honour-
able," as it came to be in our earlier history with the words Kelt and Culdee.
They happen also, for the most part, to be of fine physique ; for after all polygamy
mayibe less conducive to excess than monogamy, and Bengali Kulinism is largely
nominal. Though for the greater part ignorant of English, they are learned
Sanscritists and often accomplished Persian scholars, and they strictly maintain
the tradition of the stately old Hindu manners and social customs, and are always
the most excellent good company.
I am not worthy to "bow to the shadow of" Mr. Oman's " shoe tie," but in view
of Sir Henry Cotton's obliquitous attack on his recent profoundly significant work,
I will only say that I could confirm some of the strangest things in it from my own
personal experience in the Canarese country among the Vira-Saiva lingavant and
lingadhari.
I have the honour to be.
Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
October i, 1907. GEORGE BIRDWOOD.
Sir, — Will you allow me, as a subject of the British Empire, to join Sir George
Birdwood in his protest against the gross insularity with which the subject of Kulin
polygamy has been discussed in your columns since Sir Henry Cotton, by putting
his denial of its existence in the form of a defence of Indian morality, assumed that
the test of morality is simply conformity to English custom ? In this all your
correspondents except Sir George have followed him, the only difference being that
his intentions were civil, and theirs openly offensive. To an Indian that can hardly
weigh as a difference at all. If (to illustrate) an Indian paper were to publish a
controversy between two Bengalis, one holding up the Archbishop of Canterbury,
to the execration of all pious Hindus as a Christian, and the other defending him
as a man of far too high character to be tainted with the Christian superstition,
the Archbishop would hardly feel much more obliged to his defender than to his
assailant.
If the Empire is to be held together by anything better than armed force — and
we have neither energy nor money enough to spare from our own affairs for that
— we shall have to make up our minds to bring the institutions and social experi-
ments of our fellow-subjects to a very much higher test than their conformity to
the customs of Clapham. - It is true that mere toleration for its own, sake is out of
the question : we are not going to tolerate suttee or human sacrifice on any terms
from anybody, if we can help it. We are far too tolerant as it is, if not of other
people's abominations and superstitions, at all events of our own, which are
numerous and detestable enough in all conscience. But before we begin to hurl
such epithets as "revolting" and "abhorrent" at any customs of our Indian fellow-
subjects, we had better consider carefully why we are shocked by them. Very few
428 PEOPLE OF INDIA
of us are trained to distinguish between the shock of unfamiliarity and genuine
ethical shock. Kulin polygamy is unfamiliar : therefore it shocks us, and causes
gentlemen of ordinary good breeding to use abusive and intemperate language in
your columns. Under these circumstances, I, having ascertained that my opinion ,
in this matter is representative enough to be of some importance, am emboldened
to say that the institution of Kulin polygamy, as described by your correspondents,
does not seem to me on the face of it an unreasonable one. Let me compare it
with our own marriage customs. We are told first that the Bengalis do not marry
out of their caste. To them, therefore, the promiscuity which we profess must be
"revolting" and "abhorrent"; but we have the ready and obvious defence that
our promiscuity is only professed and not real, as our Deputy- Lieutenant class and
our commercial traveller class, for instance, do not intermarry. Further, the
Bengalis hold that it is part of the general purpose of things that women should
bear children, and that childlessness is a misfortune and even a disgrace. It will
not be disputed, I think, that this, under the surface, is as much an occidental as
an oriental view. Again, the Bengalis attach great importance to their children
being well-bred. So do we. On all these points the only difference between India
and England is that England holds her beliefs more loosely, less religiously, less
thoughtfully, and is less disposed to let them stand in the way of pecuniary gain
and social position.
How then do the parents of an English family, of the class corresponding to
the Indian Brahman class, secure well-bred grandchildren for themselves and also
for their nation ? They use their social opportunities to put their daughters pro-
miscuously in the way of young men of their own caste, in the hope that a
marriage with some one or other will be the result. Frequently it is not the
result : the daughter becomes an old maid, one of the wasted mothers of a nation
which, as Mr. Sydney Webb and Professor Karl Pearson have warned us, is
perishing for want of well-bred children. Even when chance is favourable, and
the daughter finds a husband, she often refuses to become a mother because her
religious and social training has taught her to regard motherhood as a department
of original sin, and to glory, not in the possession of children, but of a husband ;
so that the childless woman with a husband despises the mother who has no
husband.
What does the Bengali father do under the same circumstances according to
Sir Henry Prinsep? He selects a picked man — a Brahman, representing the
highest degree of culture and character in his class ; and he pays him ;^7oo to
enable his daughter to become the mother of a well-bred child.
Now this may strike the parochial Englishman as unusual or, as he would put -
it, "revolting," "abhorrent," and so forth ; but it is certainly not unreasonable and
not inhuman. Far from being obviously calculated to degrade the race, it is, on
the face of it, aimed at improving it. Sir George Birdwood has just told us in
your columns that the Kulin " happen, for the most part, to be of fine physique."
Sir George has no doubt also noticed that the products of our system happen, for
the most part, not to be of fine physique. Is it quite clear that this is mere
happening t Is it not rather what one would expect under the circumstances .'
And is the practice of taking deliberate steps to produce and reproduce men of
fine physique really revolting and abhorrent to our British conscience as distin-
guished from our British prejudice ?
Let us, however, do justice to our system, indefensible as it is in many respects
It secures what most men want : that is, a sharing out of the women among the
men so that every Jack shall have his Jill, and the able men and attractive women
shall not accumulate partners and leave mediocrity unprovided. If this were the
end of public policy in the matter, and if the race might safely take its chance of
degeneracy provided monogamy, even on the hardest conditions, were maintained
APPENDIX VI 429
there would be nothing more to be said. But as the whole Imperial problem
before us is fundamentally nothing else than to produce more capable political
units than our present system breeds— in short, to breed the Superman— this is
not a time to rail at experiments made by people who are not under the harrow of
our prejudices, or to persist in calling the customs founded on those prejudices by
question-begging names such as purity, chastity, propriety, and so forth, and to speak
of a Brahman who is the father of a hundred children as a libertine with a hundred
wives. Any man of thirty may have a hundred children without having a wife at
all and still be positively ascetic in his temperance compared with an average
respectable and faithful British husband of the same age. And if the hundred
children "happen, for the most part, to be of fine physique," the nation will be
more powerful and prosperous in the next generation than if these hundred
children were replaced by a hundred others of indifferent physique, each having a
different father, promiscuously picked up in a Clapham drawing-room.
A system which limits the fertility of its men of fine physique to the child-bear-
ing capacity of one woman, and wastes the lives of thousands of first-rate maiden
ladies in barrenness because they like to own their own houses and manage their
own affairs without being saddled with a second-rate or tenth-rate man, must not
take its own merits for granted. It may be the right system ; it may be bound up
with all that is best in our national life and fortunate in our national history ; it
may be all that our stupidest people unanimously claim for it. But then again it
may not. The evidence on the other side is weighty ; and the population question
is pressing hard on us. The case must be argued, not assumed ; and the final
verdict will be that of history and not of our modern suburban villas with no
nurseries.
Yours truly,
G. BERNARD SHAW.
10, Adelphi-terrace, W.C,
Oct. 3.
Sir, — I have only just arrived from India, and have followed with interest the
correspondence relating to Kulinism in your columns.
I am a Bengali Brahmin, and in our family daughters used never to be married
except to Kulins. Sir Henry Cotton quite correctly says that the practice of
polygamy for many years past has completely died out in Bengal. In fact, it had
died out when Mormonism was very much alive in America.
Yours faithfully,
A. CHAUDHURI, B.A. (Cantab.), 1884,
Bar.-at-law (1886), Fellow of the Calcutta University.
98, The Grove, Ealing,
ii,th Oct.
Sir, — In a leading article which appeared in The Times of the 2nd instant,
you have referred to the barbarous institution of Kttlin polygamy as a factor to be
considered in determining the character of the reformers and agitators of Bengal.
May I ask you, in the interest of truth, to permit me to offer a few critical remarks
• on the subject ?
I have two distinct grounds for entering into the controversy. First, I am a
student of sociology, whose duty it is to see that sociological data are not perverted
for the purpose of evoking racial or political antipathies ; secondly, I have the
fortune or misfortune to belong to that class of Brahmins known as Kulins, who
have long possessed the unenviable privilege of polygamy.
430 PEOPLE OF INDIA
You have, I fear, attached too Uttle importance to Sir Henry Cotton's able
refutation of the statements that appeared in your columns. I hold no brief for
Sir Henry. I do not know him personally, nor, indeed, do I always agree with
his public utterances with regard to Indian matters. But it is sheer justice to him
to state that he knows more about the social life of East Bengal than the learned
correspondents on whose assertions you base a generalization which is totally
incorrect. Kulin though I am, I have the greatest horror of the monstrous custom
of Kulin polygamy, and I have thought it my duty to inquire whether the custom
still exists. Social customs die hard, and it is inevitable that one or two instances
may occasionally occur to arouse the critical acerbity of the civilized West. But
let me assure you that Kulin polygamy as a tolerated institution has long ceased
to be.
Even, however, if it still existed, is it quite logical to draw general inferences as
to the moral character of a whole community when it is remembered that the
Kulins who practised polygamy formed a very small minority of the total popula-
tion of Bengal ? Mr. Bepin Chandra Pal, for example, is no Kulin, and his
character bears no ratio, direct or inverse, to polygamous licences. It would be
quite as rational to assert that, as adultery is not regarded as a crime by the law
of England, it must follow that the English are a nation of adulterers.
It does no good whatever to make an isolated instance the basis of a stricture
that cannot but make the work of government difficult. If Kulinism is dead,
requiescat in pace. If it is not, is there any sense in making false assertions that
must wound the pride of the Indian on the one hand, and rouse the unreasoning
prejudices of the Englishman on the other ?
Yours faithfully,
VIRENDRANATH CHATTOPADHYAYA.
43, Thanet-house, Strand, W.C,
i^th Oct.
Sir, — When I wrote the letter which appeared in your issue of September 27th
I little thought that I should be accused of expressing an opinion as to the merits
or demerits of Kulin polygamy on the ground that (to quote Sir George Birdwood)
it is opposed to our conventions of such relations. Nothing could have been
further from my intentions. My object was to correct a mistake of fact, and to do
so mainly from the evidence of a native witness. My own experience is of small
value. As, however, the charge has been made both by Sir George Birdwood and
by Mr. Bernard Shaw, may I explain that, putting all questions of sexual morality
to one side, whether the system is right or wrong in theory, in the practical working
of its extreme forms it is an organized system of extortion, working the most cruel
injustice upon its unhappy victims? Pace Mr. Shaw, it actually condemns
numbers of girls to an unmarried life who would otherwise be married. These
are questions of fact. If Mr. Shaw doubts my evidence, I can refer him to the work
written by a native of Bengal from which I quoted in my last letter, or (for earlier
years) to the report of the Commission mentioned by Sir Henry Prinsep and Sir
George Birdwood.
Let me also make one other point quite clear. While I do not hesitate to say
what I think about the evils of Kulinism, I should be disloyal to the affection
which I bear to the people amongst whom I spent some of the best and happiest
years of my life did I not openly dissociate myself from those who, because of the
existence of this evil, or because some foolish and some wicked men are guilty of
violence, denounce Hindus or Bengalis as a nation. Like all of us who have
served in India, I have had my bad moments, and have been in tight places ;
nevertheless, looking back along the vista of not a few years, it is not these that
APPENDIX VI 431
dwell ill my memory, but loyal friends that I made and innumerable tokens of the
mutual regard which existed between my own people and those amongst whom
our lot was cast.
Yours faithfully,
GEORGE A. GRIERSON.
Camberley,
Sth Oct.
\_Editorial JVoie.—The book referred to by Mr. Grierson is entitled " The Brahmans and
Kayasthas of Bengal," by Babu Girindranath Dutt. It was published in 1906. The
passage quoted was as follows :— " The only possible and practical means to extirpate the
nianifold vicious effects of Kulinism— ^.^., polygamy, ruinous marriage demands, matrimonial
difficulties, etc.— is to abolish the cause, Kulinism, from every section of the community."]
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE APPOINTED IN l866 BY THE
GOVERNMENT OF BENGAL TO REPORT ON THE
NECESSITY OF LEGISLATING ON THE SUBJECT
OF POLYGAMY AMONG THE HINDUS.
From C. HOBHOUSE, Esq., and others.
To The Secretary to Govt, of Bengal.
Dated the Tth February, 1867.
We have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letters Nos. 1647 to
l6siT, dated Darjeeling, 22nd August, 1866, to our respective addresses, and we
beg to submit the following reply : —
We understand that the Hon'ble the Maharajah of Burdwan, and some 21,000
other Hindu inhabitants of Lower Bengal, prayed for an enactment to prevent the
abuses attending the practice of polygamy amongst the Hindus in Lower Bengal ;
that His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor was in favour of the measure of bringing
the said practice strictly within the limits of ancient Hindu Law ; that, on the
other hand, His Excellency the Governor-General in Council was of opinion that the
Hindu inhabitants of Lower Bengal were not prepared, either for the suppression
of the system of polygamy, or yet for that strict hmitation of it which His Honor
the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal recommended, but desired only a remedy for the
special abuses practised by the sect of Koolin Brahmins ; that His Excellency
would therefore be prepared to take into consideration any deliberate measure
which His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor might in consultation with some of the
ablest of the leading native gentlemen in Bengal, think fit to recommend for the
suppression of the special abuses above named, provided that such measure had
not, on the one hand, the effect of restricting the general liberty now possessed by
all Hindus to take more than one wife, and that it did not, on the other hand,
give the express sanction of English Legislation to the system of polygamy, and
that to us has been committed the duty of reporting on the best means of giving
practical effect to the wishes of His Excellency the Governor-General in Council,
and of framing and submitting a Draft Bill for that purpose.
In order that it may be seen exactly what we understand that system to be, for
which we are instructed to suggest a remedy, we think it necessary, briefly, to
trace the history of Koolinism back ; to state how it arose and what it was, and
what we believe it to be, and what in the main are declared to be those evils to
which it has given rise, and which it perpetuates.
In the Institutes of Manu, we do not find any distribution of the sect of the
Brahmins into distinct denominational classes, but we find it declared that certain
432 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Brahmins were by conduct and acquirements entitled to higher respect than
other Brahmins whose conduct was not so strict, and whose learning was not so
great, and this declaration may possibly have laid the foundation of that distribu-
tion of the Brahmins into denominational classes which subsequently was made.
It was not until the time of the Hindu King BuUal Sen, who reigned some 284
years before the Mahomedan conquest, or about 877 A.D., that any distribution
into denominational classes took place. This distribution was confined to the
descendants of those Brahmins who had migrated from Kanouj into Bengal on
the invitation of the Rajah Adisur, and it is stated that the cause of this distribu-
tion was the fact that the sect of Brahmins generally had fallen off in knowledge
and in practice of the strict Hindu Sliastras.
There were two chief divisions of Koolins, viz. the Barendros of what was
then known as the geographical division of Barendrobhoom, and the Rarhis of
Burdwan and other places.
The Koolins of Barendrobhoom were divided into two classes : —
ist — Koolins ; and
indly — Kaps ;
but as it is not amongst the Barendro Koolins that any abuse of the system of
polygamy exists, we shall not further refer to these Koolins.
The Rarhi Koolins were also divided into two classes, viz. : —
1st — The Koolins ;
■znd — The Shrotryos ;
and subsequently to these classes v/as added a third, the Bhongshojo, the origin
of which is somewhat obscure.
The Koolin class was an order of merit, and was composed of those Brahmins
who had the nine qualifications —
\st — Of observance of Brahmin duties ;
2»rf— Of meekness ;
yd — Of learning ;
i,th — Of good report ; '
5M — Of a disposition to visit holy places ;
dth — Of devotion ;
Tth—Oi the preservation of the custom of marriages and intermarriages
amongst equals only ;
Zth — Of asceticism ; and
<)ik — Of liberality.
The Shrotryo was composed of those Brahmins who were supposed to have
eight only of the nine qualifications of the Koolins.
When the above classes were first created, a peculiar Code of Laws, the bulk
of which has in process of time swelled, and which is called by the Koolins the
Kooleena Shastras, was laid down for the guidance of the Koolins.
If it were possible, it would be superfluous to trace the history of the Koolins
from the time above mentioned up to the present time ; it is sufficient that we
should now state, not in its numerous ramifications and complications, but in its
main features only, what we believe to be the present condition of the Koolin class
or of Koolins and Koolinism as best known by these terms. We are speaking of
the Rarhi division of Brahmins, and we believe we are right in stating that the
chief distinctive classes amongst them at the present day are four in number, and
are these, viz. : —
The Koolins, or first class.
Bhongo KooHns, or second class.
Bhongshojo Koolins, or third class.
Shrotryo Brahmins, or fourth class.
APPENDIX VI 433
The first class is composed of persons who are supposed to possess the nine
qualifications of the order of merit, and who, at any rate, are presumed never to
have forfeited their title to that order by inter-marriages out of their own class.
These men, it is said, usually marry two wives, — one out of their own class,
and one out of the class of the Shrotryos, and they take a consideration from the
bride on the occasion of all inter-marriages with the Shrotryos, and also of all
inter-marriages amongst themselves, except in cases where there is an exchange of
daughters.
The second class is composed of Koolins of the first class, who have fallen
from this latter class by inter-marriages with daughters of families in the third class.
This second class is again subdivided into —
isf — Swakrito Bhongo Koolins ;
2nd — Bhongo Koolins of the second generation ;
Srci — Bhongo Koolins of the third generation ;
4iA — Bhongo Koolins of the fourth generation.
The male members of the first and second subdivisions of this second class
contract an unlimited number of marriages during the life-time of the first wife, and
except in cases of exchange, whether these marriages are contracted with Koolin
women of their own class, or with the daughters of parents in the inferior classes,
a consideration is given by the parents or family of the bride to the bridegroom.
In the fifth generation after the first act by which a Koolin of the first class has
fallen into the second class, i.e. has become a Bhongo Koolin, he falls into the
third class, z.e. he becomes Bhongshojo, and the fourth class, the Shrotryo, is com-
posed of persons who have never been Koolins at all.
It will be most convenient here to state that the marriages most sought after
are marriages with Bhongo Koolins of the first and second subdivisional classes,
i.e. the Swakrito and the Bhongo Koolin of the second generation, and that the
daughters of the class Bhongo Koolins generally are not permitted without degra-
dation to marry beneath their class.
We will now describe some of the main customs in the matter of marriage,
which, on the authority of the statements made in petitions to the Legislative
Council, and in some instances within the knowledge of more than one of the
native gentlemen on our Committee, obtain amongst the Bhongo Koolins, and we
will state what are declared in the papers to be the evil results of some of those
customs.
isi — In addition to the presents usually given amongst all classes of Hindoos
on the occasion of marriage, a Bhongo Koolin always, except when he gives his
daughter to a brother Bhongo, and takes in exchange that brother Bhongo's
daughter, exacts a consideration for marriage from the family of the bride.
2nei — A present is often given in addition on the occasion of any visit made to
the house of the father-in-law.
^rd — If the daughters of the first and second subdivisional classes of Bhongo
Koolins cannot be given in marriage to husbands of their own classes, they must
remain unmarried.
4tA — The number of wives, including those of the same class, is said to be often
as many as 15, 20, 40, 50, and 80.
$tA — Polygamy is said to be resorted to as a sole means of subsistence to many
Bhongo Koolins.
6//^— Marriage, it is said, is contracted quite in old age, and the husband often
never sees his wife, or only at the best visits her once in every three or four years
or so.
7tk — As many as three and four marriages have been known to have been
contracted in one day.
434 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Hh — Sometimes all a man's daughters and his unmarried sisters are given in
marriage to one and the same individual.
<)th — It is so difficult to find husbands in the proper class for Koolin women
that numbers, it is said, remain unmarried.
loth — The married or unmarried daughters and the wives of Koolins are said
to live in the utmost misery ; and it is alleged that crimes of the most heinous
nature, adultery, abortion and infanticide, and that prostitution are the common
result of the system of Bhongo Koolin marriages generally.
II//4— Cases are cited of men who have married 82, 72, 65, 60 and 42 wives,
and have had 18, 32, 41, 25 and 32 sons, and 26, 27, 25, 15 and 16 daughters.
122';^— Lists have been adduced of families in the Burdwan and Hooghly
districts alone, showing the existence of a plurality of wives on the above scale,
and in numerous cases.
I'ith — The principle on which Koolinism was perpetuated, viz. that of prevent-
ing inter-marriages between certain classes, is violated.
\^th — Families, it is said, are ruined, in order to provide the large sums
requisite to give a consideration on the occasion of their daughters' marriages, or
are unable to marry their daughters at all for want of means to procure such
consideration.
\-jth — Marriages are, it is said, contracted simply in order to this consideration,
and the husbands do not even care to enquire what becomes of their wives, and
have never even had any intention of fulfilling any one of the marriage duties.
16/;% — The crimes that are said to result from the Koolin system of marriage
are said to be habitually concealed by the actors in them and by their neighbours,
and this so as to baffle the efforts of the Pohce at discovery.
Y^th — No provision is made for the maintenance of one wife before marriage
with an unlimited number of others.
The above are said to be some of the customs and are declared to be some of
the evils said to result from the system of polygamy as practised by the sect of
Bhongo Koolins, and the evils may thus be briefly summed up : —
1st, The practical deprivation of the indulgence of natural ties and desires in
the female sex in a legitimate manner ; 2nd, the virtual, sometimes the actual,
desertion of the wife by her natural and legal protector, the husband ; 3rd, the
encouragement of the practice of celibacy amongst the female sex ; 4th, the non-
maintenance of the wife by the husband ; 5th, the supersession or abandonment of
the wife at the mere pleasure of the husband ; 6th, the formation of the contract
of marriage for money considerations simply ; 7th, the denial of nuptial intercourse
except upon special monetary consideration given ; 8th, the ruin, in a property
point of view, of families ; 9th, the contraction of the marriage tie avowedly
without any intention even on the part of the husband of fulfilling any one of the
duties of that tie ; loth, the binding down the female sex to all the obligations of
the marriage state whilst yet withholding from that sex every one of the advantages
of that state ; i ith, prostitution ; and lastly, the encouragement of the actual
crimes of adultery, abortion, and infanticide and of the habit and practice of the
concealment of such crimes.
The customs detailed above, as obtaining amongst Bhongo Koolins in the
matter of marriage, have, on the whole, we think, been accurately detailed. The
evils said to result from these customs are, we have reason to believe, greatly
exaggerated, and the abuse of the permission to take a plurality of wives is, we
believe, on the decrease ; yet we do not doubt but that great evils exist, and those
evils divide themselves naturally into two classes : first, that class which is contrary
to religion and morality, and second, that which is contrary to established law.
We think that the following extracts, containing a brief view of the Hindu
system of religion and morality as applied to the marriage state, will show that the
APPENDIX VI 435
system of polygamy, to whatever extent it is abused by the Bhongo Koolins,
IS opposed to the ordinances of the Hindu code of religion and morality :—
Brahmms are to shun the allurements of sensual gratification. Indulgence in
^^" V^^ P^^^^"''^ incurs certain guilt ; abstinence from it heavenly bliss. Neither
the Vedas, nor liberality, nor sacrifices, nor strict observances, nor pious austerities
ever procure felicity for the man contaminated by sensuality. The husband is to
approach his wife in due season ; he is to honour and adorn her ; when he honours
her, the deities are pleased ; when he dishonours her, religious acts are fruitless ;
a wife unless guilty of deadly sin, must not be deserted ; the husband who does
not approach his wife in due season is reprehensible ; he is one person with her,
and she cannot by desertion be separated from him; once a wife is given in
marriage and the step is irrevocable ; only after a wife has treated a husband with
aversion for a whole year can he cease to cohabit with her ; immorality, drinking
spirituous liquors, affliction with an incurable or loathsome disease, mischievous-
ness, waste of property, barrenness after eight years' cohabitation, death of all
children after ten years of cohabitation, the production of only female children
after eleven years of cohabitation, and speaking unkindly are the sole grounds for
supersession of a wife ; desertion of a blameless wife is penal ; subtraction of
conjugal rights is denounced with heavy penalties ; supersession of the wife is
justifiable on grounds which regard the temper, conduct or health of the wife, and
is tolerated on other grounds ; where neither justified nor tolerated, it is illegal ;
abandonment of a blameless and efficient wife, without cause given or without her
consent, is illegal ; the principles peculiar to the Brahmin forms of marriage are
those of equal consent and disinterested motives ; immemorial custom, regulating
marriage in general and in its different forms, and the relations of husband or wife,
is to be observed, and non-observance leads to forfeiture of the fruits of the Vedas.
Manu, Chapter I, 109, no to 115.
111,45, 55 to 57.
» VIII, 389.
IX, 4, 45 to 47, 77, 80, 81.
Strange, Chapter II, pp. 46, 47, 48, 52 to 54.
Macnaghten, Vol. I, 58, 60.
The above texts clearly seem to us to indicate that the Bhongo Koolins to what
extent they marry out of motives of sensuality only, or do not cohabit with, or
abandon without any cause or supersede or neglect, or do not maintain their wives,
or disregard the sanctity of the marriage tie generally, act contrary to the plainest
injunctions of the Hindoo Shastras.
To the extent that the system of inter-marriages amongst the Bhongo Koolins
encourages celibacy amongst women, and exacts a consideration for the contract
of marriage ; it is questionable whether there is any practice which is at variance
with the letter at least of the Hindoo Shastras.
In the matter of celibacy, the whole tenor of the Hindoo system of marriage
does certainly advocate the marriage of women even before they have arrived
at puberty ; penalties are prescribed for those fathers and families who neglect
to marry their daughters before they have arrived at puberty, and daughters had
formerly even the privilege of giving themselves in marriage in case of pro-
tracted neglect on the part of others to give them in marriage, yet on the other
hand, perpetual celibacy is inculcated rather than the act of giving the daughter
in marriage "to a bridegroom void of excellent qualities." — Manu, Chapter IX,
Section 89.
And again on this subject — a father is prohibited from receiving any gratuity,
however small, for giving his daughter in marriage, on the principle that he who
436 PEOPLE OF INDIA
throughavarice takes such a gratuity is a seller of his offspring.— Manu, Chapter III,
Section 51.
The case, however, that we have to contemplate is that of a father who gives,
not one who takes, a gratuity in order to the marriage of his daughter, and who is
not actuated by avarice, but by what the Hindoo Law declares to be the laudable
desire of marrying his daughter early in life, and to a Brahmin of excellerit qualities,
and there is no text that we know of that prohibits a person from taking a con-
sideration on the occasion of marriage.
The utmost that can be said against the taking of this consideration is that
it is contrary to the principle on which the four first forms of marriage, which
are peculiar to the Brahmins, are based, -viz. that both parties to the marriage
should be actuated by disinterested motives.— Macnaghten, Vol. I, paragraphs
59, 60.
Looking at the subject generally, however, there cannot be a doubt but that
the system of polygamy as practised by the Bhongo Koolins is opposed to the
strict ordinances of the Hindoo Shastras, and it is also said to be productive of
the special offences against the law which we have named, and we are instructed,
if we can, subject to the restrictions imposed upon us by His Excellency the
Governor-General in Council, to suggest a legislative measure by which the
system may be suppressed.
The root of the evil is in that custom by which Bhongo Koolins of the inferior
grades and Bhongshojo Koolins eagerly offer, and Bhongo Koolins of the higher
grades as eagerly accept, valuable considerations for the marriage of a woman of
the former classes to a man of the latter class.
A law could, of course, be passed, rendering such contracts illegal under
penalties on both the contracting parties.
But in the first place it is not clear that the letter of Hindoo Law is not rather
in favour of, than against such contracts; and in the second place, in a case
such as this, where both parties are interested to conclude the contract in
question, it is evident that either the provisions of any law prohibiting such
contracts would be evaded, or that violations of any such law would be effectually
concealed.
And evasion of such a law is all the more easy under that part of the Hindoo
system of religion and morals which inculcates acceptance by the Brahmin sect
of gifts from the virtuous, if they themselves are poor, and this as one of the
means of subsistence. — Manu, Chapter X, Sections 75, 76.
Systems of registration of marriages, of fines increasing in amount for every
marriage after the first, of certificates of all marriages after the first, to be taken
out in the Civil Courts, and such like schemes have been suggested and have
suggested themselves to us ; but in all these schemes, even if they were not other-
wise objectionable, there would, it seems to us, be an element which would,
indirectly at least, affect that "general liberty which is now possessed by all
Hindoos to take more than one wife " with which we are instructed not to
interfere.
The scheme which has at first sight seemed most feasible is that of framing a
Declaratory Law, setting forth what the law is on the subject of polygamy, and
prohibiting any infraction of it under penalties.
Such a Declaratory Law would certainly "regulate polygamy amongst the
Hindoo inhabitants of Lower Bengal generally," and we are not quite certain,
therefore, that, in proposing such a law, we should not be transgressing that part
of our instructions which forbids us to " give the express sanction of English
legislation to the Hindoo system " of polygamy ; but for the sake of considering
the subject, we will suppose that we are not prohibited from proposing a
Declaratory Law.
APPENDIX VI 437
No such a law must, in our judgments, clearly be declaratory of what the
Hindoo system of polygamy is, and nothing more and nothing less ; if it be more
or less, then it ceases to be simply declaratory, and becomes inactive.
The following is that which, after consultation of the best authorities, we find
to be the law which, strictly taken, should regulate the practice of polygamy
amongst the Hindoos.
We find that, according to one of the ordinances of Manu, a Brahmin is
enjomed to marry one wife, and this a woman of his own caste ; but that, if he
be so mclined, he is permitted to marry more than one wife, during the life-
time of his first wife, and he is recommended to select a second, a third, and a
fourth wife in the order of the classes, -viz. out of the Kshatrya, the Vaisya,
and the Sudra classes respectively and consecutively.— Manu, Chapter III,
Sections 12, 13.
This was an ordinance of the time of Manu, but we are now in the iron age
of the Hindoo system, and so a Brahmin is now forbidden to marry any but a
woman of his own caste.
It is contended, however, by the advocates of polygamy that the permission
to marry a plurality of wives, which formerly extended to women of all the four
classes, is to be construed, not so as to abolish polygamy altogether, but simply
so as to confine it to inter-marriages amongst the various classes.
To this opinion Strange so far seems to incline, in that he states that it does
not appear how many wives a Hindoo is competent to have at one and the same
time (Chapter II,. p. 56) ; and in Section 204, Chapter VIII, Manu, there is a
case in which it is evidently contemplated that a man may be the husband of
two persons of the same caste at one and at the same time, though, in this
instance, the permission was evidently only accorded under circumstances of an
exceptional nature; and again, in Section 161, Chapter IV, there is a general
maxim, a maxim allowing the widest margin conceivable, to the effect that any
act, though it be not prescribed, and if it be not prohibited, is lawful provided
that it gratifies the mind of him who performs it.
Macnaghten, on the other hand, points out the illogical nature of the deduction
made from the texts quoted, and states that action taken in the matter of marriages
from this deduction is considered by the Pundits to be reprehensible. — ^Volume I,
pp. 58, 59.
In our view the texts 12, 13, Chapter III, Manu, relied on, must be held to
be obsolete and inapplicable. Those texts refer to an era in the Hindoo system
in which it was permitted to a Brahmin to marry out of his own sect and thus
prescribed the order, and put no restraint upon the circumstances under which
he might contract such marriages ; but we are now presumed to be living in a
purer era, when marriages of this looser kind, which were before permitted, are
now prohibited, and the logical deduction seems to us to be that those texts,
which had for their main object the regulation of such marriages, have, with the
marriages themselves, become obsolete.
We turn, therefore, to those other authorities which seem to us to declare most
definitely the Hindoo system of polygamy.
Immemorial custom, which is defined to be good usages long established, is
declared to regulate the laws concerning marriage, and the relationship of husband
and wife. — Manu, Chapter I, Sections 112, 115, and Chapter II, Section 1 8.
A Brahmin who has not violated the rules of his order, who has read certain
portions of the Vedas, who has obtained the consent of his spiritual guide,
and who has performed certain ceremonial ablutions, may then espouse a
wife of the same class as himself, who is !endowed with certain excellencies,
and not marked by certain defects. — Manu, Chapter III, Sections 2 and 4, and
7 to II.
438 PEOPLE OF INDIA
■ On the decease of the wife, the husband may, after performance of sacrifice and
the funeral rites, marry again. — Manu, Chapter V, Section l68.
If a wife drinks spirituous liquors, if she acts immorally, if she shows aversion
to her husband, if she be afflicted with any loathsome or incurable disease, if she
be mischievous, if she wastes her husband's property, if she be afflicted with a
blemish of which the husband was not aware when he married her, if she have
been given in marriage fraudulently, if before marriage she have been unchaste,
if, after seven years of married Ufe, she has remained barren, if, in the tenth year
of marriage, her children be all dead, if, after ten years of marriage, she has
produced only daughters, and if she has spoken unkindly to her husband, she
may in some of those contingencies, be altogether abandoned, and in all super-
seded by her husband. — Manu, Chapter IX, Sections 72, ^^, 80, 81.
But the wife who is beloved and virtuous, though she be afflicted with disease,
may yet not be superseded by another wife without her own consent.— Manu,
Chapter IX, Section 82.
These causes are accepted by Strange as those which lead to separation
(Chapter II, p. 47), and he remarks upon the latitude which they give to the will
and caprice of the husband, whenever there is in him the disposition to take
advantage of the letter of the law.
And further on, he points out that, where suppersession of the wife is not
justifiable nor permissible, under, we would suppose, any one of the above con-
tingencies, there it is illegal ; and he defines illegal supersession to be the
abandoning, with a view to another wife, a blameless and efficient wife who has
given neither cause nor consent. — Pp. 52 to 54, Chapter II.
If we have rightly quoted, and if Mr. Justice Strange has rightly interpreted
the law, then in any Bill declaratory of law, we should have to propose to give
the sanction of English legislation to supersession of a wife on grounds the most
trivial and inadequate, to say that she might be superseded, because she was found
blemished (perhaps within the meaning of Sections 7 to 11, Manu, Chapter III)
or was mischievous (whatever that may mean), or had spoken unkindly, or was
barren (and who is to say where the fault of barrenness lies, for if it is with the
husband, then under Section 79, Chapter IX, Manu,. there is no supersession), or
for many other causes more or less ridiculous, or incapable of proof.
On these considerations, we find that it is not in our power to suggest the
enactment of any Declaratory Law, neither can we think of any legislative measure
that, under the restricted instructions given for our guidance, will suffice for the
suppression of the abuses of the system of polygamy as practised by the Koolin
Brahmins, and we beg to report to that efifect.
C. P. HOBHOUSE.
H. T. Prinsep.
SuTTo Churn Ghosal.
ISHWAR Chandra Surma.
Ramanauth Xagore.
joykissen mookerjee.
Degumber Mitter.
While subscribing to the report generally, we deem it due to record our opinion
separately on the following points : —
I. — It is stated in page 6, Clause 4, that among other evils, of Koolin polygamy
the "number of wives is often as many as 15, 20, and 80." Whatever might have
been the case in times gone by we can distinctly state that it is not so now. The
rapid spread of education and enlightened ideas as well as the growth of a healthy
public opinion on social matters among the people of Bengal, has so sensibly
affected this custom that the marrying of more than one wife, except in cases of
APPENDIX VI 439
absolute necessity, has come to be looked upon with general reprobation, Even
among Bhongo Koolins of the ist and 2nd class, the number of wives nowadays
seldom exceeds four or five except in very rare instances, but there is ample
reason to believe that this class of people will settle into a monogamous habit like
the other classes of the community, as education will become more general among
them and the force of social opinion be more widely felt.
2. — From the report it will appear that polygamy, as an institution, is confined
to a certain class of Rarhi Koolins called Bhongo of the ist and 2nd order, and
that at present the practice even amongst them obtains in a much more mitigated
form than a few years before. We need not notice that the number comprised in
that class forms but a fraction of the population of Bengal ; the catalogue of crimes,
therefore, given in page 6 of the report, even if their correctness were unimpeached,
must, it can be easily imagined, be infinitesimally small, so far as the same are
traceable to polygamy as their immediate cause. However much we deprecate
polygamy and lament its abuse, we cannot still conceal from ourselves the fact
that the evils which are plausibly enough inferred as inseparably associated with it
are not wholly ascribable to it. They are seen to exist in full force even where
polygamy is not known or is considered a crime, and would appear to be simply
the natural consequence of an imperfect knowledge of social laws not confined to
India alone. A legislative enactment, however stringent and rigidly enforced,
might be effectual in diverting those evils from their original course, but it is quite
powerless to stop the source from which they take their rise.
3. — Our countrymen are already awakened to a proper sense of the duties which
they owe to themselves and to their offsprings, to be swayed by those considera-
tions which rendered polygamy at one time an unavoidable necessity. We are
accordingly of opinion that this question may, without injury to public morals, be
left for settlement to the good sense and judgment of the people. The Govern-
ment cannot directly interfere with it without producing serious harm in diverse
ways. All that it can and ought to do is to assist in the spread of that enlighten-
ment which has already so much advanced the desired reform.
Some explanation is due from Baboo Joykissen Mookerjee, who had signed the
petition, praying for a law for restricting the practice of polygamy. He desires to
say that he has always been against this custom, and that when the movement was
initiated about ten years ago, he was strongly in favour of it from a belief that the
evils flowing from it would not be rooted out without the force of law, and when it
was revived last year, he also gave his adhesion. But he is now satisfied by
enquiries instituted by himself, as well as from representations made to him by
others, that a remarkable change in the opinion of his countrymen has, within the
last few years, taken place on this subject, that with other signs of social progress
not the least is that which marks with strong disapprobation the old custom of
taking a plurality of wives as a means of a man's subsistence, and that it would
consequently be in accord with the true interests of morality as well as of the cause
of improvement for the State to abstain from interfering in the matter.
Ramanauth Tagore.
Joykissen Mookerjee.
Degumber Mitter.
Calcutta :
The \st February, 1867.
I sign this report with the following reservations : —
I am of opinion that the evils alluded to in pages 434-5 are not "greatly
exaggerated," and that the decrease of these evils is not sufficient to do away with
the necessity of legislation.
440 PEOPLE OF INDIA
I would translate the terra " speaking unkindly " in page 458 to mean " habitually
abusing," and the term " mischievous " to mean "exceedingly cruel."
I do not concur in the conclusion come to by the other gentlemen of the
Committee. I am of opinion that a Declaratory Law might be passed without
interfering with that liberty which Hindoos now by law possess in the matter of
marriage.
ISHWAR Chandra Surma.
(ViDYASAGAR.)
The 22nd yamtary, 1867.
APPENDIX VII
SAITTAi:,.
Sonthal, Saoniar, a large Dravidian tribe, classed on linguistic grounds as
Kolarian, which is found in Western Bengal, Northern Orissa, Bhagalpur and the
Santal Parganas. According to Mr. Skrefsrud the name Santal is a corruption of
Saontar, and was adopted by the tribe after their sojourn for several generations in
the country about Saont in Midnapur. Before they went to Saont they are said to
have been called Kharwar, the root of which, khar, is a variant of kor, " man," the
name which all Santals use among themselves. As regards the derivation of the
name of the tribe from Saont, an obscure village, somewhat off the main line of
their recent migrations, it may be observed that Colonel Dalton suggested a doubt
whether the name of the place may not have been taken from the tribe, and this
view seems to derive some support from his discovery of a small tribe of Saonts in
Sarguja and Keunjhar. The point, however, is not one of great importance. At
the present day when a Santal is asked what caste he belongs to, he will almost
invariably reply, " Manjhi " (literally " village headman," one of the commonest
titles of the tribe), adding " Santal Manjhi " if further explanation is demanded of
him.
In point of physical characteristics the Santals may be regarded as typical
examples of the pure Dravidian stock. Their complexion varies from very dark
brown to a peculiar, almost charcoal-like, black ; the proportions of the nose
approach those of the negro, the bridge being more depressed in relation to the
orbits than is the case with Hindus ; the mouth is large, the lips thick and pro-
jecting ; the hair coarse, black, and occasionally curly ; the zygomatic arches
prominent, while the proportions of the skull, approaching the dolicho-cephalic
type, conclusively refute the hypothesis of their Mongolian descent.
Santal tradition traces back the origin of the tribe to a wild goose {hasdak)
which laid two eggs. From those sprang Pilchu Haram and Pilchu Burhi, the
parents of the race, who begat the first seven sub-tribes. Their earliest abode
was Hihiri or Ahiri Pipri, a name which Mr. Skrefsrud derives from Mr origin ,
and which others identify with pargana Ahuri in Hazaribagh. Thence they
went westward to Khoj-Kaman, where all of them were destroyed for their wicked-
ness by a deluge of fire-rain, except a single pair who were saved in a cleft of the
mountain Hara. From Hara they went to Sasangbera, a plain on the banks of a
great river, and after that to Jarpi, where is the great mountain Marang Buru,
through which they could find no pass. Here they offered sacrifices to the moun-
tain god, and prayed him to let them through. After a while they found a pass
leading into a country called Ahiri, where they dwelled for a time, passing on to
Kendi, Chai, and finally Champa. In Champa they sojourned many generations,
and the present institutions of the tribe were formed. At last the Hindus drove
them out of Champa, and they established themselves in Saont, and ruled there
for two hundred years. Again pressed by the Hindus, they wandered on under a
R, PI 28
442 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Raja called Hambir Singh to the eastern part of the Manbhum district near
Pachet. Here after a while their Rajas adopted the Hindu religion and set up as
Rajputs, so that at the present day they intermarry with the family of the Raja ot
Sarguja. But the people would not change their religion, so they left their chiet
to rule over Hindus, and wandered on to the Santal Parganas, where they are
settled now. , c t i •
Neither as a record of actual wanderings nor as an example ot the workings
of the myth-malcing faculty does this story of the wandering of the Santals appear
to deserve serious consideration. A people whose only means of recording facts
consists of tying knots in strings and who have no bards to hand down a national
epic by oral tradition, can hardly be expected to preserve the memory of their past
long enough or accurately enough for their accounts of it to possess any historical
value. An attempt has indeed been made by Mr. Skrefsrud to prove from these
legends that the Santals must have entered into India from the north-west, just as
Colonel Dalton uses the same data in support of his opinion that the tribe came
originally from Assam. The one hypothesis is as tenable or as untenable as the
other, and all that can be said is that there is not a fraction of substantial evidence
in support of either. If, however, the legends of the Santals are regarded as an
account of recent migrations, their general purport will be found to be fairly in
accord with actual facts. Without pressing the conjecture mentioned above, that
Ahiri Pipri may be no other iha.n parg-ana Ahuri in the north-west of Hazaribagh
district, it is clear that a large and important Santal colony was once settled in
Parganas Chai and Champa in the same district. A tradition is noticed by Colonel
Dalton of an old fort in Chai occupied by one Jaura, a Santal Raja, who
destroyed himself and his family on hearing of the approach of a Muhammadan
army under Sayyid Ibrahim Ali alias Malik Baya, a general of Muhammad
Tughlak's, who died in 1353. This tradition, so far as it refers to the existence of
a Santal fort in Chai Champa, is to some extent corroborated by the following
passage from the legends of the Southern Santals collected by the Revd. J.
Phillips and published in Appendix G to Annals of Rural Ben^al,-^A. 1868 : —
" Dwelling there (in Chai Champa) they greatly multiplied. There were two gates,
the Ahin gate and the Bahini gate, to the fort of Chai Champa." If, moreover,
the date of the taking of this fort by Ibrahim Ali were assumed to be about
1340 A.D., the subsequent migrations of which the tribal legends speak would fill
up the time intervening between the departure of the Santals from Chai Champa
and their settlement in the present Santal Parganas. Speaking generally, these
recent migrations have been to the east, which is the direction they might /n;«a
facie have been expected to follow. The earlier settlements which Santal tradition
speaks of, those in Ahiri Pipri and Chai Champa, lie on the north-west frontier
of the tableland of Hazaribagh and in the direct line of advance of the numerous
Hindu immigrants from Bihar. That the influx of Hindus has in fact driven the
Santals eastward is beyond doubt, and the line which they are known to have
followed in their retreat corresponds on the whole with that attributed to them in
their tribal legends.
The internal structure of the Santal tribe is singularly complete and elaborate.
There are twelve exogamous septs, (i ) Hasdak, (2) Murmu, (3) Kisku, (4) Hembrom,
(5) Marndi, (6) Saren, (7) Tudu, (8) Baske, (9) Besra, (10) Pauria, (n) Chore,
(12) Bedea. The first seven are believed to be descended from the seven sons of
Pilchu Haram and Tilchu Burhi or Ayo. The five others were added afterwards.
All are exogamous. In order that members of the various septs may recognize
each other when they meet, each sept, except Pauria, Chore, and Bedea, has
certain pass-words peculiar to itself, which are supposed to be the names of
the original homes of the septs in Champa or in one of the earlier settlements of
the tribe. The pass-words are as follows: — (i) Hasdak — Tatijhari, Gangijauni,
APPENDIX VII 443
Kara Guja, Sohodoro ; (2) Murmu — Champagarh, Bagsumbha, Naran Manjhi ;
(3) Kisku — Kundagarh ; (4) Hembrom — Kunda, Khairigarh, Jalaghatia ;
(5) Marndi— Badoligarh, Jelen Sinjo, Dhano Manjhi ; (6) Saren — Anbali, Barha,
Pero Pargana ; (7) Tudo — Simgarh, Sukrihutup Baru Manjhi ; (8) Baske — Ranga,
Chunukjhandu ; (9) Besra — Dhokrapalania, Gulu, Phagu Manjhi. These pass-
words or shibboleths seem to serve among the Santals the purpose for which
Australian and North American savages tattoo the totem on the body. They
preserve the memory of the tie of blood which connects the members of the sept,
and thus furnish an additional security against unconscious incest. They further
go to show that the sept in its earlier form must have been a group of purely local
character analogous to the communal septs. If due allowance is made for the
causes which must tend in course of time to scatter the members of any particular
sept over a number of different villages, it will be seen to be a remarkable circum-
stance, not that so few local septs are now to be found, but that any traces of such
an organization have survived to so late a period.
Concerning the origin of the five additional septs the following stories are told.
The eighth bibe, Baske, at first belonged to the seven, but by reason of their
offering their breakfast (baske) to the gods while the Santals were still in Champa,
they were formed into a separate sept under the name of Baske. The Besras
(No. 9) were separated on account of the immoral behaviour of their eponym, who
was called Besra, the licentious one. The tenth sept, Pauria, are called after the
pigeon, and the eleventh. Chore, after the lizard ; and the story is that on the occasion
of a famous tribal hunting party the members of these two septs failed to kill any-
thing but pigeons and lizards, so they were called after the names of these animals.
The twelfth sept, the Bedea, was left behind and lost when the Santals went up out
of Champa. They had no father, so the story goes— at least the mother of their
first ancestor could not say who his father was, and for this reason they were
deemed of lower rank than the other septs. This sept is believed to have arisen
during the time of Mando Singh in Champa when the Santals had begun to come
in contact with the Hindus. Some Santals say the father was a Rajput and the
mother a girl of the Kisku sept. There would be nothing antecedently improbable
in the conjecture that the well-known gypsy tribe of Bedea may owe its origin to
the liaison of a Rajput with a Santal girl ; but the mere resemblance of the names
is a slender foundation for any such hypothesis. Santals are very particular about
the honour of their women, so far at least as outsiders are concerned, and it is
quite in keeping with their ideas that a sept formed by a liaison with a Hindu
should have been looked down upon, and eventually banished from the community.
Any way it seems to be clear that the legend need not be taken to indicate the
prevalence of the custom of female kinship in the tribe.
No Santal may marry within his sept {paris), nor within any of the sub-septs
(khi'mt) (shown below) into which the sept is divided. He may marry into any
other sept, including the sept to which his mother belonged. A Santal proverb
says : — No one heeds a cow track or regards his mother's sept.
Although no regard is paid in marriage to the mother's sept, the Santals have
precisely the same rule as the Kandhs concerning the sub-sept or khunt. A man
may not marry into the sub-sept or khiint to which his mother belonged, though
it is doubtful whether the Santals observe this rule for as many generations in the
descending line as is customary among the Kandhs. Many of the sub-septs have
curious traditional usages, some of which may be mentioried here. At the time
of the harvest festival in January the members of the Sidup-Saren sub-sept set up
a sheaf of rice on end in the doorway of their cattle-sheds. This sheaf they may
not touch themselves, but some one belonging to another sub-sept must be got to
take it away. Men of the Sada-Saren sub-sept do not use vermihon in their
marriage ritual ; they may not wear clothes with a red border on such occasions,
444 PEOPLE OF INDIA
nor may they be present at any ceremony in which the priest offers his own blood
to propitiate the gods. The Jugi-Saren, on the other hand, smear their foreheads
with sindur at the harvest festival, and go round asking alms of rice. With the
rice they get they make little cakes which they offer to the gods. The Manjhi-
Khil-Saren, so called because their ancestor was a Manjhi or village headman, are
forbidden, like the Sada-Saren, to attend when the priest offers up his own blood.
The Naiki-Khil-Saren, who claim descent from a naiki or village priest, may not
enter a house the inmates of which are ceremonially unclean. They have a
jahirthdn or sacred grove of their own, distinct from the coxau\on jahirthan of the
village, and they dispense with the services of the priest who serves the rest of
the village. The Ok-Saren sacrifice a goat or a pig inside their houses, and during
the ceremony they shut the doors tight and allow no smoke to escape. The word
ok means to suffocate or stifle with smoke. The Mundu or Badar-Saren offer
their sacrifices in the jungle, and allow only males to eat the flesh of the animals
that have been slain. The Mal-Saren may not utter the word mdl when engaged
in a religious ceremony or when sitting on a panchayat to determine any tribal
questions. The Jihu-Saren may not kill or eat thejihu or babbler bird, nor may
they wear a particular sort of neckhce known a.sjihu mala from the resemblance
which it bears to the babbler's eggs. Thtjihu is said to have guided the ancestor
of the sept to water when he was dying of thirst in the forest. The Sankh-Saren
may not wear shell necklaces or ornaments. The Barchir-Saren plant a spear in
the ground when they are engaged in religious or ceremonial observances. The
Bitol-Saren are so called because their founder was excommunicated on account
of incest.
Girls are married as adults mostly to men of their own choice. Sexual
intercourse before marriage is tacitly recognized, it being understood that if the
girl becomes pregnant the young man is bound to marry her. Should he attempt
to evade this obligation, he would be severely beaten by the Jag-manjhi, and in
addition to this his father would be required to pay a heavy fine. It is curious to
hear that in the Santal Parganas, shortly after the rebellion of 1855, it became the
fashion among the more wealthy Santals to imitate the usages of high-caste Hindus
and marry their daughters between the ages of eight and twelve. This fashion has,
however, since been abandoned, and it is now very unusual for a girl to be married
before she attains puberty. Polygamy is not favoured by the custom of the tribe.
A man may take a second wife if his first wife is barren, or if his elder brother dies
he may marry the widow. But in either case the consent of his original wife must
be obtained to the arrangement. Instances no doubt occur in which this rule is
evaded, but they are looked upon with disfavour.
There seem to be indications that fraternal polyandry may at some time have
existed among the Santals. Even now, says Mr. Skrefsrud, a man's younger
brother may share his wife with impunity ; only they must not go about it very
openly. Similarly a wife will admit her younger sister to intimate relations with
her husband, and if pregnancy occurs scandal is avoided by his marrying the girl
as a second wife. It will of course be noticed that this form of polyandry need not
be regarded as a survival of female kinship.
The following forms of marriage are recognized by the Santals and distinguished
by separate names :— (i) Regular marriage {bajila or /&m«^ (5^^«, literally bride-
purchase) ; (2) Ghardi jawae ; (3) Itut ; (4) Nir-bolok; (5) Sangaj (6) Kiringjawae
or husband-purchase. The negotiations antecedent to a regular marriage are
opened by the father of the young man who usually employs a professional match-
maker to look for a suitable girl. If the match-maker's proposals are accepted by
the girl's parents, a day is fixed on which the girl, attended by two of her friends
goes to the house of the Jag-manjhi or superintendent of morals, in order to give
the bridegroom's parents an opportunity of looking at her quietly. A similar visit
APPENDIX VII 445
of inspection is made by the bride's parents to the bridegroom's house, and if
everything is found satisfactory the betrothal is concluded and an instalment of the
bride-price is paid. The ordinary price of a girl is Rs. 3, and the bridegroom must
also present a cloth (sari) to the girl's mother and to both her grandmothers if alive.
If more than this is paid, the bridegroom is entitled to receive a present of a cow
from his father-in-law. In the case known as agolat marriage, when two families,
each having a daughter and a son of marriageable age, arrange a double wedding,
one daughter is set off against the other, and no bride-price is paid by either party.
For a widow or a woman who has been divorced the bride-price is only half the
standard amount, the idea being, as the Santals pointedly put it, that such women
are only borrowed goods, and must be given back to their first husbands in the
next world. As the second husband has the use of his wife only in this world, it is
clearly fair that he should get her for half-price. In an early stage of the marriage
ceremony both bride and bridegroom separately go through the form of marriage
to a mahua tree {Bassia latifolia). In the case of the bride a double thread is
passed three or five times from the little toe of her left foot to her left ear, and is
then bound round her arm with some blades of rice and stems of diiba grass
(Cynodon dactyloii). The conjecture suggests itself that this may be a sur-
vival of some form of communal marriage, but from the nature of the case no
positive evidence is available to bear out this hypothesis, or to throw any light
upon the symbolism of the usage. The essential and binding portion of the ritual
is sindurdan, the smearing of vermilion on the bride's forehead and on the parting
of her hair. This rite, however, is supposed to have been borrowed from the
Hindus. The original Santal ceremony is believed to have been very simple. The
couple went away together into the woods and on their return were shut up by
themselves in a room. When they came out they were considered to be man
and wife. A practice closely resembling this was found by Colonel Dalton to be
in vogue among the Birhors, and it is quite in keeping with what is known of
the doings of primitive man in the matter of marriage. The memory of it, how-
ever, only survives among the Santals in the form of a vague and shadowy tradition
upon which no stress can be laid. Sindurdan, on the other hand, is nothing but a
refined and specialised form of the really primitive usage of mixing the blood of a
married couple and making them drink or smear themselves with the mixture, and
although it is possible that the Santals may have borrowed sindurdan from the
Hindus, there are certainly good grounds for believing that the Hindus themselves
must have derived it from the Dravidian races.
The second mode of marriage, ghardi jawae, is resorted to when a girl is ugly
or deformed and there is no prospect of her being asked in marriage in the
ordinary way. An instance has been reported to me in which a girl who had on
one foot more than the proper number of toes was married in this fashion. The
husband is expected to live in his father-in-law's house and to serve him for five
years. At the end of that time he gets a pair of bullocks, some rice and some
agricultural implements, and is allowed to go about his business.
The third form, itut, is adopted by pushing young men who are not quite sure
whether the girl they fancy will accept them, and take this means of compelling
her to marry them. The man smears his fingers with vermilion or, failing that,
with common earth, and, watching his opportunity at market or on any similar
occasion, marks the girl he is in love with on the forehead and claims her as his
wife. Having done this, he runs away at full speed to avoid the- thrashing he may
expect at the hands of her relations if he is caught on the spot. In any case the
girl's people will go to his village and will obtain from the headman permission to
kill and eat three of the offender's or his father's goats, and a double bride-price
must be paid for the girl. The marriage, however, is legal, and if the girl still
declines to live with the man, she must be divorced in full form and cannot again
446 PEOPLE OF INDIA
be married as a spinster. It is said that an ititt marriage is often resorted to out
of spite in order to subject the girl to the humiliation of being divorced.
The fourth form, nirbolok {nir, to run, and bolok to enter), may be described as
the female variety of itut. A girl who cannot get the man she wants in the regular
way takes a pot of handia or rice-beer, enters his house and. insists upon staying
there. Etiquette forbids that she should be expelled by main force, but the man's
mother, who naturally desires to have a voice in the selection of her daughter-in4aw,
may use any means short of personal violence to get her out of the house. It is
quite fair, for example, and is usually found effective, to throw red pepper on the
fire, so as to smoke the aspiring maiden out ; but if she endures this ordeal with-
out leaving the house, she is held to have won her husband and the family is
bound to recognize her.
The fifth form, sanga, is used for the marriage of widows and divorced women.
The bride is brought to the bridegroom's house attended by a small party of her
own friends, and the binding proportion of the ritual consists in the bridegroom
taking a dimbu flower, marking it with sindtir with his left hand, and with the
same hand sticking it in the bride's back hair.
The sixth form, Kiring jawae, is resorted to in the comparatively rare case
when a girl has had a liaison with, and become pregnant by, a man of her sept
whom she cannot marry. In order that scandal may be avoided, some one is
procured to accept the post of husband, and in consideration of his services he
gets two bullocks, a cow, and a quantity of paddy frOm the family of the man by
whom the girl is pregnant. The headman then calls the villagers together, and
in their presence declares the couple to be man and wife, and enjoins the girl to
live with, and be faithful to, the husband that has provided for her.
A widow may marry again. It is thought the right thing for her to marry her
late husband's younger brother, if one survives him, and under no circumstances
may she marry his elder brother. Divorce is allowed at the wish of either husband
or wife. If neither party is in fault, the one who wants a divorce is expected to
bear the expenses. The husband, for example, in such a case would not be entitled
to claim a refund of the bride-price originally paid, and would also have to pay a
fine and give the woman certain customary dues. If, on the other hand, it is the
wife who demands a divorce without just cause, her father has to make good the
bride-price in addition to a fine for her levity of behaviour. The divorce is effected
in the presence of the assembled villagers by the husband tearing asunder three
sal (Shorea robusta) leaves in token of separation, and upsetting a brass pot full
of water.
In the matter of inheritance Santals follow their own customs, and know
nothing of the so-called codes which govern the devolution of property among
Hindus. Sons inherit in equal shares ; a daughter has no claim to a portion as of
right, but usually gets a cow given to her when the property is divided. Failing
sons, the father takes ; failing him, the brothers ; after them, the male agnates.
Failing agnates, the daughter inherits with succession to her children. If a man
dies leaving young sons, his widow manages the property till all the sons are old
enough to divide and start separate households. She then takes up her abode
with the youngest. Should the widow marry outside the family, the male agnates
take the property in trust till the sons are of age, and she gets nothing. If a man
has male relatives, he cannot give away his property even to a son-in-law. Wills
are unknown.
According to Mr. Skrefsrud traces may be discerned in the background of the
Santal religion of a faineant Supreme Deity called Thakur, whom the Santals
have long ceased to worship for the sufficient reason that he is too good to trouble
himself about anybody and does neither good nor ill to mankind. Some identify
him with the Sun, whom the Santals regard as a good god and worship every fifth
APPENDIX VII 447
or tenth year with sacrifices of slain goats. But this point is uncertain, and I am
myself inclined to doubt whether a god bearing the Hindu name Thakur, and
exercising the supreme powers which marlj a comparatively late stage of theological
development, can really have formed part of the original system of the Santals.
However this may be, the popular gods of the tribe at the present day are
the following : — (i) Marang Buru, the great mountain or the high one, who now
stands at the head of the Santal Pantheon, and is credited with very far-reaching
powers, in virtue of which he associates both with the gods and with the demons.
(2) Moreko, fire, now a single god but formerly known to the Santals under the
form of five brothers. (3) Jair Era, a sister of Moreko, the goddess of the sacred
grove set apart in every village for the august presence of the gods. (4) Gosain Era,
a younger sister of Moreko. (5) Pargana, chief of the Bongas or gods and more
especially master of all the witches, by reason of which latter functions he is held
in especial reverence. (6) Manjhi, a sort of second-in-command to Pargana, a
personage who is supposed to be particularly active in restraining the gods from
doing harm to men. The two latter are clearly deities constructed on the model
of the communal and village officials whose names they bear. The idea is that
the gods, like men, need supervising officials of this sort to look after them and
keep them in order. All the foregoing gods have their allotted place in the
sacred grove {j'ahirthan'), and are worshipped only in public. Marang Buru alone
is also worshipped privately in the family.
Each family also has two special gods of its own — the Orak-bonga or household
god and the Abge-bonga or secret god. The names of the Orak-bongas are
(i) Baspahar, (2) Deswah, (3) Sas, (4) Goraya, (5) Barpahar, (6) Sarchawdi,
(7).Thuntatursa. The Abge-bongas are the following : — (i) Dharasore or Dhara-
sanda, (2) Ketkomkudra, (3) Champa-denagarh, (4) Garhsinka, (5) Lilachandi,
(6) Dhanghara, (7) Kudrachandi, (8) Sahara, (9) Duarseri, (10) Kudraj, (n) Gosain
Era, (12) Achali, (13) Deswali. No Santal would divulge the name of his Orak-
bonga and Abge-bonga to any one but his eldest son ; and men are particularly
careful to keep this sacred knowledge from their wives for fear lest they should
acquire undue influence with the bongas, become witches, and eat up the family
with impunity when the protection of its gods has been withdrawn. The names
given above were disclosed to Mr. Skrefsrud by Christian Santals. When sacri-
fices are offered to the Orak-bongas the whole family partake of the offerings ; but
only men may touch the food that has been laid before the Abge-bongas. These
sacrifices take place once a year. No regular time is fixed, and each man performs
them when it suits his convenience.
There still lingers among the Santals a tradition of a " mountain-god" (Buru-
bonga) of unknown name, to whom human sacrifices used to be offered, and actual
instances have been mentioned to me of people being kidnapped and sacrificed
within quite recent times by influential headmen of communes or villages, who hoped
in this way to gain great riches or to win some specially coveted pnVate revenge.
These are not the motives which prompted human sacrifice among the Kandlis
of Orissa, a tribe whose internal structure curiously resembles that of the Santals-
The Kandh sacrifice was undertaken for the benefit of the entire tribe, not in the
interest of individual ambition or malevolence. It is curious to hear that one of
the men credited with this iniquity was himself murdered during the Santal
rebellion of 1855, by being slowly hewn in pieces with axes, just as his own victims
had been — a mode of execution which certainly recalls the well-known procedure
of the Kandhs.
The chief festival of the Santals is the Sohrai or harvest festival, celebrated in
Posh (November-December), after the chief rice crop of the year has been got in.
Public sacrifices of fowls are offered by the priest in the sacred grove ; pigs, goats
and fowls are sacrificed by private families, and a general saturnalia of drunkenness
448 ■ PEOPLE OF INDIA
and sexual license prevails. Chastity is in abeyance for the time, and all un-
married persons may indulge in promiscuous intercourse. This license, however,
does not extend to adultery, nor does it sanction intercourse between persons of
the same sept, though even this offence, if committed during the Sohrai, is punished
less severely than at other times. Next in importance is the Bahapuja kept in
Phalgun (February- March), when the sal tree comes into flower. Tribal and
family sacrifices are held, many victims are slain and eaten by the worshippers,
every one entertains their friends, dancing goes on day and night, and the best
songs and flute-music are performed. A peculiar feature of this festival is a sort
of water-bottle in which men and women throw water at each other until they are
completely drenched.
Mention may also be made of Erok-sim, the sowing festival kept \T\Asarh (May-
June) ; Hariar-sim, the feast of the sprouting of the rice in Bhadra (September-
October) ; Trigundlinauai, the offering of the first fruits of the millets hi (Panicum
millaceum) and j-««^/« (Panicum frumentaceum) also in Bhadra; Janthar puja in
Aghran (October-November), the first fruit of the winter rice crop, Sankrant puja
on the 1st day of Posh, when bread and Chira and molasses are offered to dead
ancestors ; Magh-sim in the month of Magh, when the jungle grass is cut. This
is the end of the Santal year. Servants are paid their wages and fresh engage-
ments are entered into. On this occasion all the village officials, the Manjhi
Paramanik, Jag-Manjhi, Jag-paramanik, Gorait, Naiki, and Kudam-naiki go
through the form of resigning their appointments, and all the cultivators give
notice of throwing up their lands. After ten days or so the Manjhi or headman
calls the village together and says he has changed his mind and will stay on as
manjhi if the village will have him. His offer is accompanied with free drinks of
rice-beer, and is carried by acclamation. One by one the other officials do the
same ; the ryots follow suit, and after a vast amount of beer has been consumed
the affairs of the village go on as they did before. The Sima-bonga or boundary
gods are propitiated twice a year with sacrifices of fowls offered at the boundary of
this village where these gods are supposed to live. Jomsim puja is an offering of
two goats, or a goat and a sheep, to the sun. Every Santal ought to perform this
sacrifice at least once in his life. After a year's interval it is, or ought to be,
followed by Kutam. dangra, when a cow is offered to the household god, and an
ox to Marang Buru and to the spirits of dead ancestors. Makmor'e puja, literally
"cut five," is the. sacrifice of three goats and many fowls offered to More-ko, the
god of fire, supposed to have been originally five brothers on occasions of public
calamity, such as a failure of the crops, an outbreak of epidemic disease, and
the like.
The communal organization of the Santals is singularly complete. The whole
number of villages comprising a local settlement of the tribe is divided into certain
large groups, each under the superintendence of a parganait or circle headman.
This official is the head of the social system of the inhabitants of his circle ; his
permission has to be obtained for every marriage, and he, in consultation with a
panchayat of village headmen, expels or fines persons who infringe the tribal
standard of propriety. He is remunerated by a commission on the fines levied,
and by a tribute in kind of one leg of the goat or animal cooked at the dinner,
which the culprits are obliged to give. Each village has, or is supposed to have,
the following establishment of officials holding rent-free land : —
I. M&njhi. — Headman, usually also ijardar where the village is held on
lease under a zamindar, collects rents, and allots land among the
ryots, being paid for this by the proceeds of the man land which he
holds free of rent. He receives Re. i as marocha at each wedding,
giving in return a full handi of rice-beer.
APPENDIX VII 449
2. Paramanik.—Assistunt headman, also holding some fnan land.
(Executive officers, respectively of the manjhi and
the paramanik who, as the Santals describe it,
" sit and give orders," which the Jag-Manjhi and
Jag-Paramanik carry out.
5. Naiki. — Village priest of the aboriginal deities.
6. Kudam-Naiki. — Assistant priest, whose peculiar function it is to pro-
pitiate the spirits {bhitts) of the hills and jungles by scratching his
arms till they bleed, mixing the blood with rice, and placing it in
spots frequented by the bhiits.
7- Gorait. — ^Village messenger, who holds man land and acts as peon to
the headman. The gorait is also to some extent a servant of the
zamindar. His chief duty within the village is to bring to the manjhi
sioA. paramdnik any ryot they want.
The communal circles of the Santals seem to correspond closely to the mutas
of the Khands and ^^parhas of the Mundas and Oraons. It is a plausible con-
lecture that among all these tribes this organization was once connected with
marriage as it is among the Khands at the present day.
MUNDA.
Mura,'Horo-hon, a large Dravidian tribe of Chota Nagpur, classed on linguistic
grounds as Kolarian, and closely akin to the Hos and Santals, and probably also
to the Kandhs. The name Miinda is of Sanskrit origin. It means headman of a
village, and is a titular or functional designation used by the members of the tribe,
as well as by outsiders, as a distinctive name much in the same way as the Santals
call themselves Manjhi, the Bhumij Sardar, and the Khambu of the Darjeeling
hills Jimdar. The general name Kol, which is applied to both Mundas and
Oraons, is interpreted by Herr Jellinghaus to mean pig-killer, but the better
opinion seems to be that it is a variant of horo, the Mundari for man. The
change oi r Xa I is familiar and needs no illustration, while in explanation of the
conversion of h into k, we may cite hon, the Mundari for " child," which in Korwa
becomes kon and koro, the Muasi form of horo, " a man." It may be added that
the Kharias of Chota Nagpur call the Mundas Kora, a name closely approach-
ing Kol.
The Munda myth of the making of mankind tells how the self-existent primeval
deities Ote Boram and Sing Bonga created a boy and a girl and put them
together in a cave to people the world. At first they were too innocent to under-
stand what was expected of them, but the gods showed them how to make rice-
beer, which inflames the passions, and in course of time their family reached the
respectable number of twelve of either sex. As is usual in myths of this class, the
children were divided into pairs ; and Singa Bonga set before them various kinds
of food for them to choose from before starting in the world. The fate of their
descendants depended on their choice. Thus " the first and second pair took
bullocks' and buffaloes' flesh, and they originated the Kols (Hos) and the Bhiimij
(Matkum) ; the next took of the vegetables only, and are the progenitors of the
Brahmans and Chhatris ; others took goats and fish, and from them are the
Sudras. One pair took shell-fish and became Bhuiyas ; two pairs took pigs and
became Santals. One pair got nothing, seeing which the first pairs gave them of
their superfluity ; and from the pair thus provided spring the Ghasis, who toil not,
but live by preying on others."
The Mundas are divided into thirteen sub-tribes, several of which, such as
Kharia-Miinda, Mahili-Munda, Oraon-Munda, appear to be the result of crosses
4SO PEOPLE OF INDIA
with neighbouring tribes, while others again, like Bhuinhar-Munda and Manki-
Munda have reference to the land and communal system of the tribe. The
Mahili-Miinda sub-tribe has the pig for its totem, and for them pork is tabooed.
But appetite has proved stronger than tradition, and the taboo is satisfied by
throwing away the head of the animal, the rest of the carcase being deemed
lawful food. The septs or kills, which are very numerous, are mainly totemistic,
and the totem is taboo to the members of the sept which bears its name. A list of
the septs is given below. If it were possible to identify them all, and to ascertain
precisely to what extent and in what manner the taboo of the totem is observed by
each, the information would probably throw much light upon the growth of yearly
tribal societies.
A Munda may not marry a woman of his own sept. The sept-name goes by
the father's side, and intermarriage with persons nearly related through the mother
is guarded against by reckoning prohibited degrees in the manner common in
Behar. Adult marriage is still in fashion and sexual intercourse before marriage
is tacitly recognized, but in all respectable families matches are made by the
parents,. and the parties themselves have very little to say in the matter. The
bride-price varies from •K:4 to A20. Slndurdan, or the smearing of vermilion on
the bride's forehead by the bridegroom and on the bridegroom's forehead by the
bride, is the essential arid binding portion. The practice described by Colonel
Dalton of marrying the bride to a inahua tree \Bassla latlfolld\ and the bride-
groom to a mango seems now to have been abandoned. Traces still survive
among the Maadas of a form of marriage, resembling the Santali nlrbolok. It is
called dhuko era, meaning a bride who has entered the household of her own
accord. The children of a woman thus married seem to have an inferior status in
respect of their rights to inherit the landed property of their father. The late
Babu Rakhal Das Haldar, Manager of the estate of the Maharaja of Chota
Nagpur, gave me an illustration of this fact. Some years ago the munda or head-
man of one of the villages of the Government estate of Barkagarh died, leaving an
only son by a dhuko era wife, and a question was raised as to the latter's right to
succeed. Under Colonel Dalton's orders, a number of headmen of villages were
called together, and their opinions were taken. No decided results, however, could
be arrived at. Some thought the son should get the whole property. Others pro-
posed to exclude him altogether, and a third party considered him entitled to
maintenance. Eventually the question was compromised by admitting the son's
right to one-fourth of the land and the whole of the personal property. The case
is a curious comment on the uncertainty of tribal custom. Widows may marry
again by the ritual known as sagal in which slndurdan is performed with the left
hand. Divorce is allowed at the instance of either party, and divorced women are
permitted to marry again. In cases of adultery the seducer is required to pay to
the husband the full amount of the bride-price.
At the head of the Munda religion stands Sing-Bonga, the sun, a beneficent
but somewhat inactive deity, who concerns himself but little with human affairs
and leaves the details of the executive government of the world to the gods in
charge of particular branches or departments of nature. Nevertheless, although
Sing-Bonga himself does not send sickness or calamity to men, he may be invoked
to avert such disasters, and in this view sacrifices of white goats or white cocks are
offered to him by way of appeal from the unjust punishments believed to have
been inflicted by his subordinates. Next in rank to Sing-Bonga comes Buru-
Bonga or Marang-Buru, also known as Pat-Sarna, a mountain god, whose visible
habitation is usually supposed to be the highest or most remarkable hill or rock in
the neighbourhood. " In Chota Nagpur," says Colonel Dalton, " a remarkable
bluff, near the village of I.odhma, is the Marang-Buru or Maha-Buru for a wide
expanse of country. Here people of all castes assemble and sacrifice — Hindus,
APPENDIX VII 451
even Mahomedans, as well as Kols. There is no visible object of worship : the
sacrifices are offered on the top of the hill, a bare semi-globular mass of rock. If
animals are killed, the heads are left there, and afterwards appropriated by the
pahan or village priest." Marang-Buru is regarded as the god who presides over
the rainfall, and is appealed to in times of drought, as well as when any epidemic
sickness is abroad. The appropriate offering to him is a buffalo. Ikir Bonga
rules over tanks, wells and large sheets of water ; Garhaera is the goddess of
rivers, streams and the small springs which occur on many hill sides in Chota
Nagpur ; while Nage or Naga-era is a general name applied to the minor deities
or spirits who haunt the swampy lower level of the terraced rice-fields. All of
these are believed to have a hand in spreading disease among men, and require
constant propitiation to keep them out of mischief. White goats and black or
brown cocks are offered to Ikir Bonga and eggs and turmeric to the Nage.
Deswali or Kara-Sarna is the god of the village, who lives with his wife Jahir
Burhi or Sarhul-Sarna in the Sarna or sacred grove, a patch of the forest primeval
left intact to afford a refuge for the forest gods. Every village has its own Deswali,
who is held responsible for the crops, and receives periodical worship at the
agricultural festivals. His appropriate offering is a kara or he-buffalo ; to his wife
fowls are sacrificed. Gumi is another of the Sarna deities whose precise functions
I have been unable to ascertain. Bullocks and pigs are sacrificed to him at
irregular intervals. Chandor appears to be same as Chando Omol or Chanala,
the mooa worshipped by women, as the wife of Sing-Bonga and the mother of the
stars. Colonel Dalton mentions the legend that she was faithless to her husband,
and he cut her in two, " but repenting of his anger he allows her at times to shine
forth in full beauty." Goats are offered to her in the Sarna. Haprom is properly
the homestead, but it is used in a wider sense to denote the group of dead ancestors
who are worshipped in the homestead by setting apart for them a small portion of
every meal and with periodical offerings of fowls. They are supposed to be ever
on the watch for chances of doing good or evil to their descendants, and the
Munda fully realize the necessity for appeasing and keeping them in good humour.
The festivals of the tribe are the following: — (i) Sarhul or Sarjum-Baba, the
spring festival corresponding to the Baha or Bah-Bonga of the Santals and Hos in
Chait (March-April) when the sal \Shorea robitsta] tree is in bloom. Each house-
hold sacrifices a cock and makes offerings of sal flowers to the founders of the
village in whose honour the festival is held. (2) Kadleta or Batauli in Asarh at
the commencement of the rainy season. " Each cultivator," says Colonel Dalton,
" sacrifices a fowl, and after some mysterious rites a wing is stripped off and
inserted in the cleft of a bamboo and stuck up in the rice-field and dung-heap.
If this is omitted, it is supposed that the rice will not come to maturity." (3) Nana
or Jom-Nana, the festival of new rice in Asin, when the highland rice is harvested.
A white cock is sacrificed to Sing-Bonga, and the first fruits of the harvest are
laid before him. Until this has been done, it would be an act of impiety to eat
the new rice. (4) Kharia puja or Kolom Singh, called by the Hos Deswali Bonga
or Magh Parab celebrating the harvesting of the winter rice, the main crop of the
year. Five fowls and various vegetables are offered to Deswali, the god of the
village at the kalihan or threshing floor. Among the Hos of Singbhum the festival
is kept as a sort of saturnale, during which the people give themselves up to
drunkenness and all kinds of debauchery. This is less conspicuously the case
with the Mfindas of the plateau who live scattered among Hindu and Christian
neighbours, and do not form a compact tribal community like the Hos of the
Kolhan. The festival, moreover, is kept by the Mundas on one day only, and is
not spread over a month or six weeks, during which time the people of different
villages vie with each other in dissipation, as they do in the Kolhan.
The funeral ceremonies of Mundas do not differ materially from those of the Hos.
452 PEOPLE OF INDIA
Succession among the Mundas is governed by their own customs, which appear
to have been little affected by the influence of Hindu law. Property is equally
divided among the sons, but no division is made until the youngest son is of age.
With them, as with the Santals, daughters get no share in the inheritance ; they
are allotted among the sons just like the live stock. " Thus if a man dies, leaving
three sons and three daughters and thirty head of cattle, on a division each son
would get ten head of cattle and one sister ; but should there be only one sister
they wait till she marries and divide the ^a«," or bride-price, which usually
consists of about six head of cattle. Among the Hos of Singhbhum the bride-
price is higher than with the Mundas, and the question of its amount has there
been found to affect seriously the number of marriages.
According to ancient and universal tradition, the central tableland of Chota
Nagpur Proper was originally divided into par/ias or rural communes, comprising
from ten to twenty-five villages, and presided over by a divisional chief, called the
raja or iniinda of the parha. In 1839, titular rajas oi the parha were still
existing in the Fiscal Division of Khukra near Ranchi, who retained considerable
authority in tribal disputes, and at times of festival and hunting. But this
element in the Munda village system has now fallen into decay, and survives only
in the jhandas or flags of the parha villages, and in the peculiar titles bestowed
on the cultivators themselves. The exclusive right to fly la particular flag at the
great dancing festivals is jealously guarded by every Munda village, and serious
fights not unfrequently result from the violation of this privilege. Besides this,
individual villages in a parha bear specific titles, such as raja, diwan kunivar,
thakur, chhota lal, etc., similar to those which prevail in the household of the
reigning family, which obviously refer to some organization which no longer exists.
I am informed that these officials still make the arrangements for the large hunting
parties which take place at certain seasons of the year.
A Kol village community consists, when perfect, of the following officers : —
Munda, mahato, pahn, bhandari, gorait, goala, and lohar. Washermen, barbers
and potters have been added since 1839, and even now are only found near much
frequented halting places, and in villages where the larger Hindu tenure-holders
live. The Kols invariably shave themselves, and their women wash the clothes.
(i) Munda. — The munda is the chief of the bhuinhars, or descendants of the
original clearers of the village. He is a person of great consequence in the village
and all demands from the bhuinhars, whether of money or labour, must be notified
by the owner of the village through the munda. He is remunerated for his trouble
by the bhuinhari land, which he holds at a low rate of rent, and receives no other
salary. In pargana Lodhma, and in the south-eastern portion of Lohardaga, he
sometimes performs the mahato's duties as well as his own, and he then gets a
small jagi'r of half apawa of land rent-free.
(2) Mahato. — The functions of a mahato have been compared to those of a
patwari or village accountant, but he may be more aptly described as a rural
settlement officer. He allots the land of the village among the cultivators, giving
to each man a goti or clod of earth as a symbol of possession ; he' collects the rent,
pays it to the owner, and settles any disputes as to the amount due from the
raiyats; and, in short, manages all pecuniary matters connected with the land.
He is appointed by the owner of the village, and receives one pawa of rajas land
rent-free as a jagtr or service tenure. But the office is neither hereditary nor
permanent, and the mahato is liable to be dismissed at the landlord's discretion.
Dismissal, however, is unusual, and the mahato is often succeeded by his son.
Where the mahato collects the rents, he almost universally receives a fee, called
batta, of half an anna from each cultivator, or of one anna for every house in the
village. In one village batta amounts to four annas and a half on every pawa of
land. Occasionally, where there is no bhandari or agent for the owner's rent-
APPENDIX VII 453
paying land, the mahato gets three bundles {karats) of grain in the straw, contain-
ing from ten to twenty seers apiece, at every harvest. Thus during the year he
would receive three bundles of gondii [Sorghum vulgare\ from the cold weather
crop, and the same amount from the^ora or early rice, and the don or late rice.
In khalsa villages, which are under the direct management of the Maharaja, the
mahato often holds, in addition to his official yafzV, a single pawa of land, called
kharcha or rozina khet, from the proceeds- of which he is expected to defray the
occasional expenses incurred in calling upon cultivators to pay their rent, etc.
The functions of the mahato are shown in greater detail in the following extract
from Dr. Davidson's Report of 1839 : — " On a day appointed, the thikadar or
farmer proceeds to the akhra or place of assembly of the village, where he is met
by the mahato, pahn, ahandari, and as many of the raiyats as choose to attend.
He proceeds, agreeably to the dictation of the mahato, to write down the account
of the cultivation of the different raiyats stating the number oipawas held and
the rent paid by each. Having furnished this account, any new raiyats who may
wish to have lands in the village, after having the quantity and rent settled, have
a goti given to them. If any of the old raiyats require any new land, a.gofi\s
taken for that, but not for the old cultivation. The mahato collects the rent as
the instalments become due, according to the above-mentioned account given to
the farmer ; and all differences as to the amount of rent payable by a raiyat, if any
ever arise, which very seldom happens, are settled by the opinion of the mahato.
So well does this mode answer in practice, that in point of fact a dispute as to the
amount of rent owed by a raiyat is of rare occurrence. When a farmer wishes
to cheat a raiyat, he accuses him of having cultivated more land than he is
entitled to, or of owing him maswar or grain rent for land held in excess ; and if
such a thing as a dispute as to the amount of rent owed ever does arise, the
mahatds evidence is generally considered conclusive by both parties."
(3) Pahn. — The importance of the/a^«, or priest of the village gods, may be
inferred from the current phrase in which his duties are contrasted with those of
the mahato. The pahn, it is said, " makes the village " {gdon banata), while the
mahato only " manages it " {gdon chalata). He must be a bhuinhar, as no one
but a descendant of the earliest settlers in the village could know how to propitiate
the local gods. He is always chosen from one family ; but the actual pahn is
changed at intervals of from three to five years by the ceremony of the sUp or
winnowing-fan, which is used as a divining rod, and taken from house to house by
the boys of the village. The bhuinhar at whose house the sup stops is elected pahn.
On the death oi apahn, he is frequently, but not invariably, succeeded by his son.
Rent-free lands are attached to the office of pahn under the following names : —
(i) Pahni, the personal /agfr or service-tenure of the priest, generally containing
one pawa of land. (2) Dalikatari, for which the pahn has to make offerings to
Jahir Burhi, the goddess of the village. It is called dalikatari, as it is supposed
to defray the expenses of the Karm festival, when a branch (dali) of the karma
tree is cut down and planted in the fields. (3) Desauli, a sort of bhutkheta or
devil's acre, the produce of which is devoted to a great triennial festival in honour
of Desauli, the divinity of the grove. This land is either cultivated by Xh^pahn
himself, or by raiyats who pay him rent. (4) Panbhara and tahalu are probably
the same. Lands held under these names are cultivated by the /aA« himself or
his near relations ; and whoever has them, is bound to supply water at the various
festivals.
(4) Bhandari. — The bhandari, or bailiff, is the landlord's agent in respect of
the management of the village. He is usually a Hindu, and represents the land-
lord's point of view in village questions, just as the pahn is the spokesman of the
bhuinhars or original settlers. He generally holds one pawa of land rent-free from
the owner, receiving also from every raiyat three karais or sheaves of each crop as
454 PEOPLE OF INDIA
it is cut — one of gondii, one of early rice, and one of wet rice. Instead of the
land, he sometimes gets Rs. 3 or Rs. 4 in cash, with 12 kats, or 4i cwt. of paddy.
(5) Goraif.— The gorait is, in fact, the chaukidar, or village watchman. He
communicates the owner's orders to the raiyats, brings them to the mahato to pay
their rents, and selects coolies when required for public purposes. As a rule he
holds no service land, but receives the three usual karais, or sheaves, from every
cultivator.
(6) Ahir or Goala.—The ahir's duty is to look after the cattle of the village,
and to account for any that are stolen. He is remunerated by a payment of one
,4«^ of paddy for each pair of plough- bullocks owned by the cultivators whose cattle
are under his charge. He also gets the three karais, or sheaves, at harvest time,
besides an occasional sfip or winnowing-fan full of paddy. If cows are under the
ahir's charge, the milk of every alternate day is his perquisite. In the month of
Aghan (December) he takes five seers of milk round to the cultivators, receiving
in return pakhira or 20 seers of paddy as a free gift. He always pays the abwab
known as dadani ght, and in some villages has to give the baithawan ghi as well.
In a very few cases the ahir holds half a pawa of land rent-free.
(7) Lohdr. — The lohar, or blacksmith, gets one kat of paddy and the three
karais for every plough in the village, and is also paid two or three annas for every
new phar or plough-share ; in a very few villages, he holds half a pawa qi land
rent-free.
The kotwdl or constable, and the chaukidar or watchman, do not belong to the
genuine Munda village system, and need not be mentioned here.
In the Fiscal Division of Tori the bulk of the inhabitants belong to the
Kharwar sub-tribe of Bhogtas, and the village system differs from that which
prevails on the central plateau. Here pahn is the only official who holds service
land, and he gets half a/a/^z, or not quite two standard bighas. He performs the
village ^z<;'fl!j, and often does the work of a tnahato, when the owner of the village
is an absentee. But even then the landlord sometimes employs a bailiff, called
barhill, to collect the rents.
In the tract known as the Five Parganas including Tamar, Bundu, Silli, Rahe,
and Baranda, as well as in the Manipatti, or that part of Sonpur pargana which
borders on Singbhum district, we meet with mankis and mundas, who are un-
doubtedly the descendants of the original chiefs, and still hold the villages which
their ancestors founded. Here Xheparha divisions exist in their entirety, as groups
of from twelve to twenty-four villages each of which has its own munda or village
head ; while the whole commune is subject to a divisional headman called manki,
who collects the fixed rents payable by the mUndas. The chief village ofificer is
the pahn, who holds from one to five kats of land rent-free as dalikatari. A kat
in this sense is a measure of land analogous to, if not identical with, the khandi of
the Kolhan in Singbhum, and denotes the quantity of land which can be sown
with one kat of seed. In this part of the country the munda sometimes has
a deputy called diwan, who assists him to collect his rents, and bhanddris are
occasionally met with.
INDEX
Abdal, of northern and eastern Bengal, 77 ;
low status of among Muhammadans, 123.
ACHAKZAI Baloch, proverb regarding, 144,
327-
AcHAL, of Bengal, exorbitant marriage de-
mands by, 167.
ACHARJI, a fortune-teller, 116.
Adisura, Adisvara, Raja of Bengal, imports
Brahmans, 56, go, 116.
/Eneid, of Virgil, pantheism in, 237.
Afghans, marriage customs among, 67 ;
relations with Hindus and marriage by pur-
chase, 124; proverbs regarding, 141, 144,
326. 33'-
African type of man, the, 23.
Afridi tribe, proverb regarding, 144, 326.
Agarwal Baniya, proverb regarding, 312.
Ager, salt-workers in Kanara, loi.
Agradani Brahmans, low status of, 116.
Ahir, a tribe transformed into a caste, 76 ;
occupation of, in Bihar, 76 ; cowherds in
Kanara, loi ; totems in the Central Pro-
vinces, 102 ; their distribution in India,
126 ; proverbs regarding, 141, 142, 307,
317. 318. 33'. 332-
Ahoms, of Assam, their origin and language,
10; proverbs regarding, 311; form of
marriage, 311.
Aiyangar Brahmans, proverbs regarding,
305-
AjLAF, "low people,'' converts to Islam in
Bengal from indigenous castes, 121, 122.
AjODHYA, a title adopted by sub-castes, 93.
Akbari, Darbari Jats, origin of, 180.
Alberti, Leo Battisfa, his canon of the
human body, 16.
Alexander, the Great, his invasion of India,
S3-
Allen, Mr. B. C, on marriage of Brahman
widows to men of lower castes, 86.
Allen, Mr. Grant, on the Ghost theory, 228.
Ambastha, the, of Manu, an ancient func-
tional group, 116, 260.
American type of man, the, 23.
Amorges, King of the Scythians, S7-
Anantha Krishna Iyer, Mr. L. K., on
totemism in south India, 103 ; on marriage
among the Nambutiri Brahmans, 203.
Andamanese, the, physical type of, 32 ;
colour of, 14; hair of, 15, 23; anthropo-
raetrical seriations, 390-393.
Animism, 218 ; Sir E. Tylor's tlieory of, 222 ;
ideas underlying, 223 ; impersonal forces in,
225 ; leading features of, 231 ; its relation
to popular Hinduism, 232, 233 ; its con-
solidation into pantheism, 237 ; in Japan,
297 ; sources of its usages, 236.
Antarkaran, Antarkhandait, Antar-
PUA, terms applied to illegitimate children,
84.
Anthropometric characters, 16 ; seriations,
344-393-
Anthropometry, conditions in India favour-
able to, 20.
Antimerina, the, of Madagascar, 180.
Antioch, the Patriarch of, 82.
Apastamba, his traditional scheme of caste,
261.
Arachosia, part of Sakastan, 58.
Arain, the market-gardener caste, proverbs
regarding, 310, 331.
Aravalli Hills, the, 45,
Araxes, the river, 50.
Arbela, the battle of, 58.
Arjun Singh Sardar, his scheme for mar-
riage reform, 203, 204.
Arora caste, the stature of, 37.
Arrian, his account of the march of Kra-
teros from India, 53.
Arya Samaj, the, declaration regarding mar-
riage, 204 ; its part in the nationalist re-
vival, 253.
Aryans, their race sentiment towards the
Dravidians, J.
Aryo-Dravidian type, the, 33, 39, 40.
Arzal, " lowest of all," a term defining
Muhammadan social status, 123.
Ascetics and devotees, proverbs regarding,
143. 306. 307. 324 f-
Ashraf, "noble," a term defining Muham-
madan social status, 122.
Asiatic type of man, the, 23.
4S6
PEOPLE OF INDIA
Assam, invaded by the Ahoms, lo ; stature
of the people of, 32 ; Mongoloid type in,
42 ; popular sayings regarding the people,
148, 307i 329-
Atharva-veda, feeling against birtK of
daughters, 166 ; on widow-burning, 182.
Atrap, "mean people," a term defining Mu-
hammadan social status, 122.
Attar, the caste of perfumers, proverb re-
garding, 321.
Australia, relation of the Dravidians to the
natives of, 47, 48 ; totemism in, 105, 106,
107 ; aborigines not typical of primitive
man, 106, 107.
Australoid type of man, the, 25.
AwA, the mason caste in Nepal, 87.
Awadhia Kurmis in Bihar, 93.
Aw AN tribe, the, head type of, 37.
Ayodhya Kurmis in Bihar, 93.
Ayogava, an ancient functional group, 260.
Azerbaijan, a province of Persia, 55.
B
Babhans of Bihar, head form of, 39 ; loss of
status, 92 ; their sections, 313 ; grouping in
the Census Report of 1891, III ; proverbs
regarding, 142, 313, 331.
Bactriana, invaded by the Sse, 58 ; overrun
by the Ephthalites, 59.
Babylon, the Patriarch of, 81, 82.
Badaga, a tribe of the Nilgiri Hills, head
form of, 45.
Bagar tribe, proverb regarding, 306.
Bagdi of Bengal, a tribe transformed into a
caste, 76 ; social status of, 120 ; widow
marriage among, 185.
Bagehot, Mr. W., classification of political
institutions, 107.
Baghel Rajputs, proverb regarding, 308.
Baghela sept of the Miindas, their totem, 96.
Bahurupia, the buffoon caste, their classifi-
cation in the Census Report of 1 89 1, III.
Baidya caste, the, classification in Census
Report of 1891, 113; social position of,
116, 117; marriage customs, 309; proverbs
regarding, 141, 308 f, 331, 332.
Baijnath Lal, Lala, on the fusion of sub-
castes, 159.
Baines, Sir A., his definition of Hinduism,
2321 233-
Baishtam caste of Bengal, their social status,
118, 119.
Balkash, the lake, 57.
Ballal Sen, Raja of Eastern Bengal, 119.
Baloch tribe, the, anthropometrical data,
346 f. ; head form of, 35 ; indolence of, 52 ;
admittance of outsiders, 66 ; social status of,
124 ; proverbs regarding, 144, 145, 326,
327-
Baluchistan, physical features and people
of, 3 ; march of the Scythians through, 58 ;
status of the Hindus in, 123, 124.
Bambans, Bammans, Brahmans, a Christian
caste in the Konkan, 80.
Bande Marathas, hypergamy among, 164.
Bangsaj of Bengal, intermarriage with
Kulins, 167.
Banhra of Nepal, originally Buddhist priests,
79-
Baniya, the trading caste, their script, 312 ;
proverbs regarding, 131, 132, 141, 307,308,
309, 311 ff., 314, 322, 324, 331.
Banjara, the carrier caste, proverbs regarding,
318.
Barahseni Baniyas of the United Provinces,
marriage among, 160.
Baraik, a sub-caste of Pans in Chota Nagpur,
91.
Barbers, proverbs regarding, 133, 305, 313 f.
Barendra, a sub-caste in Bengal, 88 ; a group
of Bengal Brahmans, 157.
Barhai, the carpenter caste, proverbs re-
garding, 135, 316.
Barna Brahmans of Bengal, low status of,
116,125.
Baroda, Early Marriage Prevention Act,
201, 202, 404-406.
Barua. See Rajbansi.
Barwaik Rajputs of Chanda, origin of, 91.
Basa river, the, 50.
Bastholm, C, his theory of fetishism, 219.
Basu, Mr. Bhupendra Nath, on the dis-
organization arising from caste, 283, 284.
Baudhayana, his traditional scheme of caste,
261.
Bauri, a tribe becoming a caste, 76 ; totems
of, 121.
Bedi, the, of Gurdaspur, infanticide among,
176.
Bediya, the, vagrants in Bengal, low status
of, 123.
Behna, the cotton-carding caste, proverbs re-
garding, 144.
BeJ, a quack doctor, proverb regarding, 309.
Bengal, abuses in marriage customs, 194 ;
physical type of the people of, 40, 41 ; pro-
verbs regarding, 148, 329.
Berad, a hunting tribe, proverb regarding,
323-
Bergaigne, M. A., " I/a Religion Vedique,"
236.
Bertillon, M. a., his principle of graphic
representation by means of maps, 125.
Betrothal customs in Rajputana, 197.
INDEX
457
Bhakat, the ascetic class, proverb regarding,
324-
Bhand, the actor caste, proverb regarding,
325-
Bhandari women in Bengal taken as concu-
bines by Kayasths, 83.
Bhandarkar, Dr. R. G., on the marriage
age, 200.
Bhanga Kshatriya, a title assumed by the
Rajbansi Kochh, 74, 75.
B HANOI, the scavenger caste, 76 ; proverb
regarding, 325.
Bhar tribe, the, of Hindustan, head form,
39 ; of Manbhum, totemism among, 99,
100.
Bharbhunja, the grain-parching caste, pro-
verb regarding, 316.
Bharwad tribe of Bombay, proverbs regard-
ing, 318.
Bhat, the bard and genealogist caste, eat
with Kurmis of Bihar, 93 ; proverbs regard-
ing, 140, 141, 308, 325, 330, 331.
Bhat Brahmans of Bengal, 116.
Bhatia, a semi-Rajput tribe, proverb regard-
ing, 325-
Bhatiyara, the caste of innkeepers, 77 ;
proverbs regarding, 308, 312, 316.
Bhavaiya, the actor caste, proverbs regard-
ing, 140, 330.
Bhil tribe, the, anthropometrical serration of,
370 f. J their dialects, 11 ; exogamous,
totemistic septs of, loi ; classification of in
the Census Reports, 109 ; a localised tribe,
126; proverbs regarding, 139, 140, 323.
Bhishti, the water-carrying caste, proverb
regarding, 324.
Bhitanni Baloch, proverb regarding, 144.
Bhojak caste, the, widow marriage among,
94-
Bhonsla, Rajas, the, of Nagpur, 93.
Bhosle Marathas, hypergamy among, 164.
Bhuinhar caste, the, nasal index of, 40 ; loss
of status by, 92 ; title assumed by leading
men of the Bhumij tribe, 96.
Bhuiya tribe, the, give water to higher castes,
117; proverb regarding, 311.
Bhumij tribe, their absorption into Hinduism,
75 ; developing into a caste, 96, 97 ; claim-
ing to rank as Rajputs, 156 ; a territorial or
local group, 157.
Bihar, marriage customs in, 194, 195.
Bikauwa Brahmans, marriage customs of,
215.
BiRDWOOD, Sir G., on Kulin polygamy, 426,
427.
BiSHNOl, the sect, 79 ; a sectarian group, 158.
BlTANNl Baloch, proverb regarding, 326.
BiYAHUT, Behuta, " the married," a term
R, PI
applied to castes which prohibit widow
marriage, 93.
Blanc, M. C, his canon of the human figure,
17-
Blanford, Mr. W. T., on the decrease of
rainfall, 51.
BONGAS, godlings of disease, 227.
Bopp, r., his " Comparative Grammar of the
Indo-European. Languages," 7.
Borchart, W., "Die Sprichwortlichen
Redensarten," 129.
Boria caste, the, 86.
Boya tribe, the, totemistic septs of, 102.
Brahmans, anthropometrical seriations of,
376 f., 382 f. ; physical characters of, 40;
distribution of, 76 ; their grouping in the
Census Report of 1891, iii, 114; their
social status in Bengal, 116; described by
Manu, 151, 152 ; their marriage customs,
194 ; a caste formed by migration, 90, 91 ;
polygamy among in Muzaifarpur, 215 ;
varied occupations in ancient times, 260 ;
their influence in caste formation, 276 ;
proverbs regarding, 130, 131, 305 if., 313,
317,322,324,332.
Brahmo Samaj, the, becoming a new caste,
80 ; its adherence to ancient prejudices, 25 ;
tendencies in marriage reform, 192.
Brahhi tribe, its relation to the Dravidians,
12, 13 ; physical characters, 36 ; tribal
organisation, 66, 67 ; their language, 50 ;
status and marriage customs, 124 ; proverbs
regarding, 145.
Broca, p., his chromatic scale, 13 ; his stan-
dard of the Greek physical type, 16.
Brosses, C. de, "Du Culte des Dieux
Fetiches," 219.
Buchanan, Dr. F., on the Mande, 44 ; on
marriage customs in Bihar, 194, 195 ; on ■
polyandry, 208.
Buddhism, statistics of its adherents in India,
246.
BuHLER, Dr. G., on the age of the Law
Books, 178.
Buna caste, widow marriage among, 185.
BURFAT Baloch, proverb regarding, 327.
Burma, contrasted with Baluchistan, 3 ; caste
unknown in, 124 ; totemism in, 103, 104.
Burn, Mr. R., on the scientific views of the
Arya Samaj, 253, 262 ; on the Bishnois, 79.
Caldwell, Bishop R., on \he pdrac/uri, 139.
Campbell, Sir G., on the Khattris, 253, 254.
Camper, P., inventor of the facial angle, 17.
Castaneda, F. L. de, on the Nayars, 207, 208.
29
458
PEOPLE OF INDIA
Caste, origin of the term, 67, 68 ; definition
of, 68; influence of railways on, 123; pro-
verbs regarding, 130, 150, 332 f. ; influence
of Hinduism on, 246 ; its influence against
Ciiristianity, 251 ; its origin, 257, 258 ;
Indian theory of its origin, 258, 259 ; theory
of Sir D. Ibbetson, 263, 264, 410-418 ;
theory of Mr. J. C. Nesfield, 265, 407-409 ;
theory of M. E. Senart, 267, 418-422 ;
factors of its formation, 269 ; under the
Roman Empire, 270 ; its influence on art,
270 ; its genesis, 273 ; ethnological con-
clusions regarding, 276.
Castes, types of, 75-95 ; traditional occupa-
tions of, 76 ; formed by crossing, 82 ;
national, 86-88 ; formed by migration, 88-
92 ; formed by changes of custom, 92-94 ;
classification of, 109 ; not merely developed
tribes, 272.
Caucasian or white type of man, 24.
Ceylon, formation of the Burgher class in,
274.
Chakkaliyan caste, distribution of, 126.
Chakma tribe, anthropological sedations,
384 f. ; nasal index of, 43.
Chaldean Syrian Christians, the, 81, 82.
Chamar, tanner and leather-working caste,
anthropometrical.seriations, 378 f. ; physical
type, 33 ; nasal index, 40 ; occupation, 76 ;
social status, 115, 121 ; distribution of, 126 ;
proverbs regarding, 137, 138, 312, 321 f.,
323. 331-
Chanda, averting of hail at, 77 ; Barwaiks
of, 92.
Chandal, menials, form of head, 27 ;''a tribe
transformed into a caste, 76 ; an ancient
group, 260 ; proverb regarding, 322.
Charan, the caste of bards and genealogists,
proverb regarding, 308.
Charles, Sir H., craniometrical researches
by, 21.
Charoda, Chardo, a caste of Christians in
the Konkan, 80.
Chaudhari, Mr. A., on Kulin polygamy, 429.
Chasa, a cultivating caste, give concubines
to Kayasths, 83 ; Chasadhobas, change of
occupation, 77 ; Chasi-Kaibarttas, served by
Vyasokta Brahmans, n6 ; call themselves
Mahisya, 118 ; proverbs regarding, 330, 332.
Chattopadhyaya, Mr. V., on Kulin poly-
gamy, 429 f.
Chattri, a title assumed by the Khas, 86.
CllAUBiJ Brahmans, proverb regarding, 305 f.
Chaudhari, Mr. A., on Kulin polygamy, 429.
Chauseni Baniyas, marriage customs, 160.
Cheruman, agricultural serfs, head form,
45 ; cause ceremonial pollution to higher
castes, US'
Chetti, a trading caste, proverb regarding,
311-
CHHABii Brahmans, proverb regarding, 305 f.
Chhatisgarh district, social isolation of the
people, 89.
ChhIpi, dyers of cloth in Nepal, 87.
Chik, butchers, 77 ; head form of, 45.
Chik-Baraiks, a. low caste in Chutiya
Nagpur, 9 1 .
Chin tribe, a professional group with
hereditary occupation, 124 ; their descent
from the king-crow, I04.
Chishti, a holy man, proverb regarding, 326.
Chitral, march of the Aryan-speaking race
through, 55.
Chittagong, gobbling speech of, 9, 10.
Christian, Mr. J., on Kulin polygamy, 425 f.
Chris iianitv, statistics of its adherents, 246 ;
progress among the lower classes, 249.
Chuhra, sweepers, anthropometric seriations,
358 f. ; their nasal index, 40 ; - proverb
regarding, 140, 330.
Churihar, bangle-makers, proverbs regard-
ing. 315-
Chutiva Nagpur, Dravidian tribes of, 63.
Cochin State, Christianity in, 81.
CoDRiNGTON, Dr. R. H., on Animism in
Melanesia, 225.
Coldstream, Mr. W., on infanticide in the
Punjab, 174.
Colour, a test of race in India, 13, 14.
Comparative Philology, its relation to
Ethnology, 7.
Comte, a., " Philosophic Positive," 219,
220, 265.
CooCH Behar State, probable origin of the
ruling family, 75.
Coolies, Dravidian, migrations of the, 45.
CooRG people, anthroporaetrical seriations,
364 f. ; measurements of, 21 ; of the Scytho-
Dravidian type, 33, 38.
Cotton, Sir H., on the Brahnio community,
80; "New India," 279, 282, 284, 291 f. ;
on Kulin polygamy, 423, 425.
Coulanges, Fustel de, N.D., "La Gaule
Romaine," 296.
Cousin, J., on nasal measurements, 17.
Craniometry and anthropology, 19, 20.
Ctesias, on the physical characteristics of the
Indian people, 17.
CuviER, Baron G., on primitive types of
men, 23.
Cyrus conquers the Scythians, 57, 58.
Dafali, the drummer caste, 77 ; proverb
regarding, 331.
INDEX
459
Dakhin-Rarhi, a sub-caste of Kayasths, 170.
Daksha, the sacrifice of, 99.
Dalal, Mr. J. A., on widow marriage in
Baroda, 94.
Dalal, the lawyers' tout class, proverb
regarding, 141, 331.
Dalton, Col. E. T., on the Kochh, 41 ; on
Nagbansi Rajas, 73 ; on Bauri totemism, 121.
Damoh, Brahman immigration from Gujarat,
89.
Dandi ascetics, proverb regarding, 143, 324.
Darbari Jats, origin of, 180.
Dard tribe, Scythian type of features, 36.
Darzi, the tailor caste, rank among Muhamma-
dans, 122 ; proverbs regarding, 135, 141,
3'4, 318-
Dasa, an ancient functional group, 260.
Dasht-i-kavir, desert, 52.
Dasht-i-Lut, desert, 53.
Dasturji, Parsi priests, proverb regarding,
142.
Dattatreya, worship of, 229.
Davari, drummer class, proverb regarding,
326.
Dayananda Saraswati, founder of the
Arya Samaj, 253.
Deccan, the, geological age of, 2 ; proverbs
regarding its people, 329, 331.
Dehwar tribe, anthropometrical seriations,
350 f. ; orbito-nasal index of, 36.
Dejardin, M., his definition of a proverb, 128.
Democracy and caste, 286.
Desat, Mr. E. H., on Kunbi marriages, 166 ;
on widow marriage, 186 ; on the betrothal
of infants, 190 ; on the Early Marriage Pre-
vention Act, 203.
Deshasth Brahmans, head form of, 38.
Desh Kunbis, a branch of the Marathas, 87.
Devabhaja, high position of among the
Newars, 87.
Devadasi, dancing girls, proverb regarding,
321.
Dhan, a sept of the Mundas, totemism among,
96.
Dhed, a menial caste, proverbs regarding, 138,
139. 323. 332.
Dhigvansa, workers in leather, 260.
Dhimar caste, personal servants of Brahmans,
102.
Dhobi, washermen, proverbs regarding, 135,
136, 141, 318, 319, 331.
Dhund, a semi-Rajput tribe, excess of women
among, 178.
Dhundia ascetics, proverb regarding, 325.
Dhunia, Dhuniya, Nadaf, cotton-carders,
78 ; their rank among Muhammadans, 122 j
proverb regarding, 319.
Dill, Sir S., " Roman Society in the Last
Century of the Western Empire," 242, 245,
271.
Dinajpur district, Kochh in, 74.
Distribution of social groups, 125.
Dogra RAjPUTS,immigration to the Himalaya,
43-
DoM, scavengers, tribal origin of, 76, 126 ;
ceremonial pollution by, 115; low status
of, 120; a territorial group in Bihar, 157;
proverbs regarding, 138, 140,317,322,331.
Do.MBA, strolling clowns, proverb regarding,
325-
DoNATUS, the grammarian, on proverbs, 129.
DosADH caste of Bihar, head form, 39 ;
village watchmen and messengers, 76 ; a
tribe transformed into a caste, 126.
Drangiana, 58.
Dravida, a tribal or national group, 260.
Dravidians, the, physical type, 34, 44-47 ;
the earliest inhabitants of India, 48 ; tribes
in Chutiya Nagpur, 63 ; marriage among,
187; proverb regarding, 329.
Droits de seigneur, proverb regarding,
306.
Dube Brahmans, proverb regarding, 305 f.
Dubla, a jungle tribe, proverb regarding, 325.
Dulia, a sub-caste of the Bagdi, 157.
Duncan, Jonathan, on polyandry, 208.
DtJRER, A., on the proportions of the human
body, 17.
EarlIB? Mr., on polyandry in Sikkim and
Tibet, 211.
Early Marriage Prevention Acts, 201,
202, 403-406.
Edgar, Sir J., on infanticide among the
Nagas, 172.
Education, its effect on Christianity, 251.
Ektharia caste, origin of, 86.
Elemental, impersonal forces in religion,
225.
Eliot, Sir C, on the Huns, 60.
Endogamy, or "marrying in," 156.
Enthoven, Mr. R. E., on the Marathas, 87.
Environment, the influence of, xix., 38.
Ephthalites or Hoa, 59.
Eponymous exogamous divisions, l6i.
Erasmus, D., " Proverbiorum Epitome,"
128.
Ethnographic ■ Survey, Bombay, on the
Katkari and Halapaik totemism, 100 ; Cen-
tral Provinces, on Maratha hypergamy, 164.
Ethnology, the data of, 6 ; the external and
internal factors of, 3, 4.
Europeans, proverb regarding, 332
460
PEOPLE OF INDIA
Exogamy, "marrying out," in relation to
totemism, 107; origin of, 108, 109, no;
exogamous divisions, 161,
Eyes, the colour of, 15, 16.
Face, the shape of, 29, 30.
Fakir, a beggar, holy man, proverbs regard-
ing, 143, 147, 324, 325.
Fawcett, Mr. F., on the Nambudri Brah-
mans, 90 ; on the Nayars, 208.
Festus, the philologist, on proverbs, 129.
Fetish, Fetishism, origin of the terms,
219 ; their meaning, 219, 220.
FiCK, Dr. R., "Die Sociale Gleiderung im
Nordostlichen Indian zu Buddha's Zeit,"
260.
Fishermen, proverbs regarding, 136.
Flower, Sir W., on physical anthropology,
6, 21, 23, 30, 32.
Food and drink, restrictions on, 279, 280.
Forbes, J., on polyandry, 208.
Francis, Mr. W., on the Idayan caste, 94 ;
on Christianity among low castes, 249.
Fraternal polyandry in the Himalaya, 210,
211.
Frazer, Sir J., on the Meriah sacrifice, 63;
on totemism in Assam, 64 ; on cousin mar-
riage, 162.
Fredericke, C, on polyandry in Malabar,
207.
Friend-Pareira, Mr. J. E., on totemism
among the Kandhs, 96.
Functional or occupational types of caste,
76.
Gaddi, herdsmen, proverbs regarding, 142,
317. 331-
Gadhvi, nomadic cattle-dealers, proverbs
regarding, 318.
Gait, Mr. E. A., on Muhammadan castes in
Bengal, 77, 78 ; on the Shagirdpesha,
83-85 ; on Bihar castes in Bengal, 88 ; on
caste precedence, 115 ; on the Muham-
madans of Bengal, 122, 123 ; on infanticide,
176 ; on infant marriage, 191 ; on religious
statistics, 246 ; on literacy, 283 ; on
languages, 289.
Gakkhar tribe, the, high proportion of
women, 178.
Ganak widows, descent of Borias from, 86.
Gandhara kingdom, the, foundation of, 59.
Gandhi, grocers, proverb regarding, 311.
Gareri, shepherds, proverbs regarding, 142,
318, 331-
Garo tribe, totemism among, 103.
Garpagari, an averter of hail, 77.
Gauna, the despatch of a bride to her hus-
band, 194.
Gaurwa Rajputs, loss of status on account of
widow marriage, 93.
Gavda, Gavid, salt-makers, 80.
Gentoos, Hindus, caste among, 68.
Getae, the, identified with the Goths, 60.
Ghanchi, oil-makers, proverb regarding, 3 i6f.
Gharbari AtIth, an ascetic group becoming
a caste, 79.
Ghatak, marriage-brokers, influence of, 205.
Ghose, Mr. Manmohan, proposal for marriage
reform, 199, 200.
Ghost, the, origin of religion from the belief
in, 228.
GiCHKi Baloch, proverb regarding, 327.
GiLGiT, entry of the Jndo- Aryans through, 55.
Girindrnath Dutt, Mr., "The Brahmans
and Kayasthas of Bengal," 167.
Girth, cultivators, proverbs regarding, 310.
Gmelin, J. G., botanist and traveller, 220.
Goala, the cowherd caste, 76 ; distribution
of, 126.
GocHi, an exogamous sept of the Kandhs, 63.
Gohel Rajputs, proverb regarding, 308.
GoKHALE, Mr., on rebellion against caste,
282.
GoLA, the herdsman caste, distribution of,
126 ; proverbs regarding, 317, 332.
GOLAM, " slave," a term applied to the Sha-
girdpesha, 84.
GOLDNEY, Major, his theory of infanticide,
177-
GoND tribe, the, totemism among, 102 ; a
localised tribe, 126.
GosAiN, ascetics, influence of, 86.
Goths, confounded by the Romans with the
Getae, 60.
Grasia, a forest tribe, proverb regarding,
324. 330.
Graul, Mr., Lutheran Missionary, on poly-
andry, 208.
Gregory, Prof. J. W., on desiccation, 54.
Grierson, Sir G., his Linguistic Survey of
India, 8, 9, II, 55 ; on Bhakti, 256 ; on
Kulin polygamy, 423 f. , 430 f.
Gubernatis, A., "Usi Nuziali," 189.
GujAR tribe, the, nasal index, 37 ; transition
from a tribe to a caste, 76 ; a caste of recent
formation, 126 ; proverbs regarding, 138,
142, 308, 317, 322, 330, 331, 332.
Gujarat, Khedawal Brahmans of, 89 ; cradle
song from, 312 ; proverbs regarding the
people of, 148, 329.
Gupte, Mr. B. A., measurements conducted
by, 22
INDEX
461
Guru Prasad Sen, on Hindu social life,
232, 282.
GURUNG tribe, the stature of, 44.
H
Haddon, Dr. A. C, on the classification of
human types, 21.
Haihaibansi dynasty, the, of Ratanpur, 89.
Hail, averting, methods of, 77.
Hair, varieties off 15.
Hajjam, Turk Naia, the barber caste, 78 ;
proverbs regarding, 133, 305, 313 f.
Halalkhor, scavengers, low position of, 123.
Halepaik caste, totemistic exogamous groups,
lOO ; descent in the female line, loi.
Halia, a sub-caste of the Kaibartta, 157.
Halvakki Vakkal, caste, the, exogamous
totemistic septs, 100.
Halwai, the confectioner caste, proverb
regarding, 316.
Hamilton, Capt. A., his account of Nayar
marriage rites, 208.
Hari, the scavenger caste, low position of, 120.
Hara Prasad Sastri Mahamopadhyaya, on
ancient territorial divisions, 157.
Hartland, Mr. E. S., on polyandry, 212.
Hastings, Dr. J., "Encyclopaedia of Religion
and Ethics," on the derivation of the term
Shaman, 221 ; on the Bhakti-marga, 256.
Hazara tribe, head form of, 35.
Head, shape of the, 26-28.
Helmund valley, march of Krateros through,
S3-
Helo, a sub-caste of the Kaibartta, 157.
Herodotus, on the skulls of Persians and
Egyptians, 1 7 ; on the Getse, 60.
Himalayan Rajputs, septs of, 94.
Hindki Jats, the, proverb regarding, 309.
Hinduism, definitions of, 232, 233 ; inclusive
cha,racter of, 237, 238 ; its future, 255 ; its
ethics and metaphysics, 244 ; its moral tone,
245 ; its close association with caste, 246 ;
numbers of its adherents, 245, 246 ; con-
versions to Islam from, 247-249.
Hindus, social precedence of, n6-i2i ; pro-
portion of the sexes among, 177.
Hindustani physical type, the, 39.
History, non-existence of common political,
in India, 290, 291.
Hiung-nu, the Huns, 59.
Ho tribe, exogamous septs of, 95.
Hodgson, B. H., on the military tribes of
Nepal, 85.
Hodson, Mr. T. C, on totemism in Assam,
103 ; on infanticide, 172.
HoERNLE, Dr. A. F. R., his theory of the
origin of the Aryo-Dravidians, 55, 56.
Hoffman, F., his theory of mechanical
causation, 222.
Hole, a group of the Halepaik, loi.
Holeva, the field-labourer caste, proverb
regarding, 330.
Holland, Sir T., on the tribes of south
India, 21.
Hora caste, proverb regarding, 308.
HuGHES-BuLLER, Mr. R., on the Baloch
and Brahui tribes, 64-67 ; on their social
organisation, 123, 124.
Huns, the, 58, 59.
Hunter, Sir W., on the Dravidian problem,
48.
Huntington, Mr. E., on the desiccation of
Central Asia, 54.
Hunza tribe, the, headform of, 35.
Huxley, T. H., on the Dravidians, 25 ; on
their relation to the aborigines of Australia,
47-
Hypergamy, " marrying up," 163 ; origin of,
178-181 ; influence of, 184.
Ibbetson, Sit D., on Rajputs in the Punjab,
93 ; on infanticide, 176 ; on the term
hypergamy, 163 ; on infant marriage, 193 ;
his definition of Hinduism, 232 ; his theory
of caste, 263, 264, 410-418.
Idaiyan, shepherds, widow marriage among,
94; their distribution, 126.
ILBERT, Sir C, on ancestor worship, 229.
Iluvan, Tiyan, toddy-drawers, pollution
from them, 115.
India, its geographical position, i ; its
ethnical isolation, 2.
Indian Nationalism, its future, 299, 300.
Indo-Aryan type, the, 33, 37, 38.
Infant Marriage, prevalence of, 186, 187 :
its origin, 187, 188 ; Mr. J. C.. Nesfield's
theory, 188, 189 ; its antiquity, 189, 190 ;
Mysore Preventive Act, 200, 201, 403, 404 ;
Baroda Preventive Act, 201, 202, 404-406 ;
reform in Rajputana, 195, 196 ; proverb
regarding, 305.
Infanticide, 171-178; influence of exogamy
on, 171-173; a result of hypergamy, 173;
its diminution in India, 174 ; statistics of,
177, 178.
Intermarriage, remarks of Sir C. Petheram
on, 292, 293.
Iranian classes of society, 262, 263.
IrulA, a forest tribe, colour of, 14 ; head
form, 45 ; proverb regarding, 325.
462
PEOPLE OF INDIA
IsHAQi Bannuchi, proverb regarding, 326.
Isolation, ethnical of India, i.
Itar, a term applied to low caste Muhammadan
converts, 122.
J
Jacobite Syrian Christians, 82.
Jackson, Mr. A. M. T., on the theory of
Indian kingship, 285.
Jadgal. See Jagdal.
Jagannath, temple of at Puri, 73 ; non-
observance of caste at his temple, 330 ;
Jagannathi Kumhar, 98, 99.
Jagdal, Brahui recruited from, 66 ; converted
Jats, 145 ; proverb regarding, 145.
JAIWAR, a hypergamous Brahman group, 215.
JALIYA, fishermen, social status of, 120.
Jalpaiguri, Kochh tribe of, 74.
JANGAM, priests of the Lingayat sect, proverb
regarding, 325.
Japan, an example to Indian nationalists,
296-298.
Japu, cultivators in Nepal, 87.
Jat, tribe, anthropometrical data, 344 f. ; seria-
tions, 348 f. ; stature of, 37 ; connection with
theRajputs,49; theory of their origin, 60, XX. ;
distinguished from Rajputs by the practice
of widow marriage, 93 ; alleged fraternal
polyandry, 310 ; a caste of recent formation,
126 ; grouping in the Census Report of
1 89 1, III; legend of hypergamy, 179;
physique of their women, 180, 193, 194;
proverbs regarding, 132, 133, 141, 309, 310,
311, 313,322, 324, 331, 332.
JaTapu, a branch of the ICandh, 94 ; totemism
among them, 102.
Jati Baishtam, the, of Bengal, 79.
JAUNPURIA, a title of emigrant sub-castes, 88.
Jaxartes, the river, 50, 57.
Jhalawan Brahui, proverb regarding, 145.
Jog, a hypergamous Brahman group, 215.
JOGI, ascetics, proverbs regarding, 143, 324^
325-
JOLAHA, the weaver caste, 78 ; their social
status, 122; proverbs regarding, 130, 136,
137. 319 f-. 327-
Jolly, J., " Rechte und Sitte," 182.
Jones, Sir W., his translations from the
Sanskrit, 7.
JOSHI, Brahman astrologers, proverbs regard-
ing, 306.
Juan-Juan, the tribe, 59.
JUGI, weavers, loss of status, 79 ; tailors and
musicians in Nepal, 87,
Julian, the Emperor, his revival of paganism,
244, 245.
K
Kabbadias, Prof. P., on prehistoric towns, 4.
Kachari tribe, the, physical type, 42;
totemism among them, 103 ; classification
in Census Report of 1 89 1, III.
Kachhi, march of the Scythians through, 58.
Kachhi, caste of market gardeners, head
form, 39 ; proverb regarding, 142, 332.
Kachin tribe, legend of origin, 104.
Kadam Maratha, hypergamy among, 164.
Kadir tribe, nasal index and stature, 46, 47.
Kafir tribe, head form and orbito-nasal index,
35, 36-
Kahar caste, eat food prepared by Kurmis, 93.
Kahol, Kahal, a "family" among the
Afghans, 65.
Kaibartta, a functional caste of fishermen
and cultivators, 76 ; the educated branch
separating from the illiterate, 77 ; a tribe
transformed into a caste, 126.
Kaivartta, an ancient functional group, 260.
Kakar Baloch, anthropometrical seriations,
352 f. ; proverbs regarding, 144, 327.
Kalal, the distiller caste, proverbs regarding,
312, 319. 331-
Kalati Baloch, proverbs regarding, 145.
Kalidasa, his " Sakuntala," 7.
Kallan, the blacksmith caste, proverb re-
garding, 315.
Kallar, a thieving caste, proverb regarding,
331-
Kalmati Baloch, proverb regarding, 327.
Kalu, the oil-pressing caste, 78.
Kamalakar, caste, small exogamous divisions
of, 162.
Kamar, the blacksmith caste, proverbs re-
garding, 315.
Kamboh caste, proverbs regarding, 141, 331.
Kamina, Itar, terms applied to low caste
Muhammadan converts, 122.
Kammalan, artisans, convey ceremonial
pollution, 115 ; proverb regarding, 315.
Kanauj, a seat of Vedic learning, 90 ; sub-
castes named from, 93 ; exclusiveness of
Kanaujia Brahmans, 159 ; proverb regard-
ing, 306.
Kandahar, Krateros marches to, 53.
Kandh, Khond tribe, human sacrifice among,
63, 91 ; Jatapu branch developing into a
caste, 94 ; local or communal septs, 96 ;
infanticide among, 172 ; gochi, a sub-
division, 108 J totemism, 102.
Kangra Hills, position of the Hindus in, 94.
Kanjar, a gypsy-like tribe, proverbs regard-
ing, 138, 322.
Kanet tribe, measurements of, 22.
Kaphri, Sidi, Christians in the Konkan, 80.
INDEX
463
Kapu caste, totemistic exogamous sections,
102.
Karan Shagirdpesha caste, marriage rules,
84.
Karar, Kirar, the money-lending caste, pro-
verbs regarding, 141, 309, 312, 313, 331.
Karavara, leather-workers, an ancient
functional group, 260.
Karma, the doctrine of and transmigration,
238 ; its connection with the caste system,
276.
Kasai, the butcher caste, 77 ; proverbs re-
garding, 140, 141, 320 f., 332.
Kasbt, a prostitute, proverbs regarding, 141,
331-
Kashmiri people, colour of, 14 ; proverbs
regarding, 141, 306, 331.
KashtA-Srotiya group, their marriage
rules, 164.
Kasi Baloch, proverb regarding, 144.
Kasia tribe, anthropometrical seriations
388 f.
Kasypa gotra, among the Kochh, 74 ; among
Kumhars, 99.
Kathi tribe, widow marriage among, 94.
Kathiawar, Brahman migration from, 90.
Katkari tribe, physical type of, 38 ; to-
temism among, 100.
Kau, blacksmiths in Nepal, 87.
Kawmi, carpenters, sweetmeat-makers in
Nepal, 87.
Kayasth, the writer caste, physical type, 33 ;
nasal index, 41 ; occupation, 76 ; con-
cubinage among, 83 ; claim to be Ksha-
triyas, 92, 117; classification in Census
Report of 1891, 113 ; social status of, ij6 ;
marriage customs, 194 ; proverbs regarding,
141, 309, 331-
Kazi, a Mubammadan judge, proverbs re-
garding, 13s, 141, 146, 147- See Qazi.
Kealy, Mr. H., on polygamy, 199.
Kennedy, Mr. J., on Early Commerce of
Babylon with India, 2. ,
Kewat, the fishermen and cultivator caste,
76 ; proverb regarding, 331.
Khambu tribe, stature of the, 44.
Khandagirt, temples at, 79.
Khandait, their classification in Census
Report of 1891, ni.
Khangar tribe, totemism among the, roi.
Khanikoff, M. N., on the features of the
Kirghiz, 58.
Kharan, the state and desert of, 52.
Kharia tribe, head form of, 45.
Kharosthi, a form of script, 61.
Khas tribe, immigrants to the Himalaya, 43 ;
in Nepal the offspring of mixed marriages,
8S-
Ki-iasa, an ancient group, 260.
Khasi tribe, totemism among, 103.
Khasia tribe, nasal index of the, 44.
Khatak Baloch, proverb regarding, 144, 326.
KhatIk, the butcher caste, proverb regard-
ing. 331-
Khatri, the merchant caste, head form, 37 ;
classification in Census Report of 1891,
113 ; associated with the Arya Samaj move-
ment, 253 ; their influence in the Punjab,
254 ; proverbs regarding, 132, 141, 313,
330, 331
Khattya Kumhar, the, 98.
Khedawal Brahmans, influence of railways
on marriage, 89.
Khel, Zai, groups among the Baloch, 66;
among the Naga, 64,
Khetran, the, affiliated to the Baloch, 66.
Khoja, traders, proverb regarding, 313.
Khond. See Kandh.
Khorasan, advance of the Indo-Aryans
through, 52.
Khotan, the Huns in, 59.
Khotta, a term applied to barbers, 88.
Khwarism, overrun by the Ephthalites, 59.
Kichak, the, dialect of, II.
Kirar. See Karar.
Kirata, a tribal or national group, 260.
Kirghiz, the, their features, 58.
Kirman, Strabo's account of, 53.
Kitolo, chief of the Kushan, 59.
Kochh tribe, anthropometrical seriations,
380 f. ; physical type, 41, 42 ; claim Ksha-
triya origin, 74, 92 ; their grouping in the
Census Report of 1891, III.
KoiRi, the market-gardener caste, head form
of, 39 ; a functional group, 76 ; proverb
regarding, 319.
KOLARIANS, their language and origin, 48.
KoLI, a tribe becoming a caste, 7^ ; a localised
group, 126 ; proverbs regarding, 140, 321.
Koligor, a sub-caste of Brahmans, 94.
KoLLMAN, Prof., on the classification of
human types, 21.
KoMATi, a trading caste, totemism, 102 f. ;
proverbs regarding, 31 1, 313.
KoNKANASTH Brahmans, eye colour, 15 ;
Konkani Christians prohibit infant marriage,
81 ; Konkani Kunbis, a branch of the
Marathas, 87.
KoRA tribe, the, totemism among, 97 ; tra-
ditional place of origin, 98.
Korku tribe, totemism among the, 102.-
KORWA tribe, head form of, 45.
Kotha-po, "own son," a title of the Sha-
girdpesha, 84.
Krateros, his route from Quetta, 53.
Krishna, the legend of, 242 f.
464
PEOPLE OF INDIA
Krishnapakshi, a title of illegitimate chil-
dren, 84.
KsHATRlYA, the military order, in Nepal, 85 ;
a title claimed by the Khas, 86 ; raid of
Parasu Rama on the, 74, 92 ; Khatris claim
descent from, 1 12 ; Kaibarttas claim origin
from, 118 ; proverb regarding, 332.
Kl">Kl tribe, totemism among the, 103.
KULANCHI Baloch, proverb regarding, 328.
KULDEVAK, a Maratha totem, 88.
KULIN Brahmans, polygamy among the, 166-
171, 214, 215 ; their marriage rules, 164;
report on by Mr. C. Hobhouse and others,
431-440.
KuLU, drum-makers and curriers in Nepal,
87.
KtjMBAR, KuMHAR, the potter caste, Chris-
tians in the Konkan, 80 ; in north India,
76 ; totemism among the, 98-100 ; distri-
bution of, 126; proverbs regarding, 315,
331-
KUMT, a group of households in Japan, 297.
KuNBl caste, head form and stature, 38, 39 ;
a branch of the Marathas, 87 ; proverbs
regarding, 133, 140, 310, 332. See KuRMl.
KuNDl Baloch, proverb regarding, 326.
KUNJRA, Muhammadan greengrocers, 78.
KURAVAN, gypsy-like nomads, proverb re-
garding, 325.
Kurd tribe, proverb regarding, 145.
KURGAL, a title of the Brahui, 328.
KURMI caste, head form, 46 ; social status,
93 ; totemistic exogamous sections of, 97 ;
proverbs regarding, 133, 310. See KuNBl.
KusHAN, a dynastic title of the Yuechi, 59.
Laelih, the leader of the Ephthalites, 59.
Lahri Brahiii, proverb regarding, 145.
Lakhan Udayaditva, the Kushan leader,
59-
Lala Baijnath, Mr., on connubial groups,
159 ; on the antagonism of caste and
nationality, 284.
Lalbegi, the sweeper caste, 123.
Lalung tribe, totemism among, 103.
Lambadi caste, nasal index of the, 46.
Lang, Mr. Andrew, on primitive man, 107 ;
on exogamy, 109 ; on unworshipped Su-
preme Beings, 226.
Langah, musicians in Baluchistan, 124.
Language and race, 7-13 ; and nationality,
288-290 ; possibility of growth of a national
language, 289 ; number of languages in
India, 289.
Lava, a tribal priest of the Bhumij, 96.
Lemuria, a submerged continent, 47.
Lepcha tribe, nasal index, 43 ; anthropo-
metrical seriations, 386 f.
Lepsius, K. R., on the Egyptian canon of
the human figure, 16.
LEVifA KUNBI, their discontinuance of widow
marriage, 94.
LiCHHivi, an ancient national or tribal group,
260.
LiNGAM, the phallic emblem, 243.
Lingayat, Virshaib, sect, skin colour of, 15 ;
a sect transformed into a caste, 25, 78, 158 ;
proverb regarding, 142, 330.
LiNN^us, C. von L., on the four primitive
types of men, 23.
Local, communal, family exogamous sections,
. 161.
LODHA, cultivating caste, proverb regarding,
142, 332-
LOHAR, the blacksmith caste, proverbs re-
garding, 134, 13s, 315, 316.
Lohengrin, the legend of, 73.
LORI blacksmiths, their status, 124.
Lowis, Mr. C. C, on totemism in Burma,
103 ; on caste in Burma, 124.
LuARD, Major C. E., on Bhil and Khangar
totemism, lol, 102.
Lubbock, Sir J., Lord Avebury, on totemism,
105 ; on Shamanism, 221.
Lucian, his use of proverbs, 128 ; on Karma,
239-242.
Lyall, Sir A., his definition of Hinduism,
233 ; on pantheism, 237.
M
Macdonell, Prof. A. A., on widow marriage
in the Vedic age, 182 ; on the doctrine of
metampsychosis, 238 ; and A. B. Keith, on
hypergamy, 163 ; on marriage in the Vedic
age, 189 ; on the origin of caste, 262, 267.
Machhi, the fisherman caste, proverbs re-
garding, 136, 321.
Machhua, a sub-caste of the Bagdi, 157.
McCuLLOCH, Col. W., checks infanticide in
Manipur, 172.
Maclagan, Hon. E. D., on female infanti-
cide, 176, 177.
McLennan, J. F., on totemism, 105 ; on
endogamy and exogamy, 156 ; on female
infanticide and exogamy, 171.
Macpherson, Major S., on infanticide
among the Kandhs, 172.
Madagascar, hypergamy in, 180.
Madhunapit, the, change of occupation
among, 77.
Madhyadesa, " the Middle Land," 2, 55.
INDEX
46s
Madiga, leather-workers, distribution of the,
126.
Madras, Bishop of, on the future of Christian
Missions, 250, 251.
Magadha, an ancient tribal or national group,
260.
Magar women concubines of the Khas, 86.
Magh caste, the, head form of, 40.
Magic, its relation to Religion, 227, 228.
Mahar, a menial caste, their nasal index, 38;
a tribe transformed into a caste, 76 ; a
section of the Halepaik, loi ; proverbs re-
garding, 138, 139, 323.
Mahatam, a menial caste, proverb regarding,
325-
Mahesri Baniyas, proverb regarding, 312.
Mahili tribe, the, exogamous groups of, 83 ;
totemism among, 97 ; their connection with
the Santal, 97, 98.
Mahisya, a title adopted by the Chasi Kai-
bartta, 118, 157, 164.
Maine, Sir H., on the study of the sacred
languages of India, 7 ; on widow sacrifice,
183.
Maisey, Gen. F. C, " Sanchi and its Re-
mains," 5.
Maithil, Tirhutiya Brahmans, polygamy
among the, 215.
Mal, a tribe transformed into a caste, 76.
Mal Paharia, the, nasal index of, 46.
Male tribe, the, nasal index of, 46.
Mali, the gardener caste, proverbs regarding
the, 142, 316, 324, 331, 332.
Malik Talut, King Saul, reputed ancestor
of the Pathans, 64.
Malla, an ancient tribal or territorial group,
260.
Mande, Garo, nasal index of the, 44.
Mang, a, menial caste, proverb regarding,
323-
Manu, the Laws of, on the four original
classes, 49 ; on the degradation of men of
the higher castes, 92 ; on the position of
Brahmans, 151, 152 ; on hypergamy, 163 ;
on the Indian theory of caste, 258 ; on
tribal or national groups, 260.
Marang Boru, the Santal mountain deity,
225, 441.
Marathas, the, their Scythian origin, xx.,
61 ; their relation to the Kunbi, 87 ; a
tribe transformed into a caste, 76 ; widow
marriage among them, 94 ; grouping in the
Census Report of 1891, iii ; proverbs
regarding, 148, 329.
Margava, an ancient tribal or national
group, 87.
Mariya, Thathera, a worker in brass,
proverb regarding, 320.
Marri Baloch, admission of outsiders, 66.
Marriage, in Baluchistan, 67 ; and caste,
154-215 ; contrasts between India and
Europe, 154-156 ; expenses, 196, 197 ; re-
form in Rajputana, 195-199 ; reforms io
Mysore, 200, 201 ; reform in Baroda, 201,
202; proposed legislation, 199, 200, 203,
204 ; difficulties of legislation, 206.
Marshall, Col. W. E., on the Todas, 177.
Marten, Mr. J. T., on cousin marriage, 162 ;
on Kandh infanticide, 172; on betrothal,
190; on infant marriage, 191.
Marwari, moneylenders, proverbs regarding,
149. 329, 332-
Marwat Baloch, proverb regarding, 144,
326.
Masezai Baloch, proverb regarding, 327.
Matial, a sub-caste of the Bagdi, 157.
MatIn-uz-zaman Khan, Mr., on cross-
cousin marriage, 1 62.
Matwala Khas, parentage of the, 86.
Maulik-Kulin Brahman, marriage, 170,
Mazhabi Sikhs, elevated from the Chuhra,
38.
Mead, Messrs. P. J., and Macgregor, G. L.,
on totemism, 100 ; on the reduction of
marriage expenses, 203.
Mech tribe, its grouping in the Census Re-
port of 1891, III.
Mecho, a sub-caste of the Kaibartta, 157.
Med tribe, anthropometrical seriations, 354 f. ;
proverbs regarding, 145, 328.
Melanochroid type of man, the, 24.
Meman caste, proverbs regarding, 328, 329.
Mengal tribe, proverb regarding, 145, 328.
Menon, Mr. C. Achyuta, on the Jacobite
Christians, 82 ; on ceremonial pollution,
"S-
Meo, MfNA, the tribe, 49, 76 ; proverbs re-
garding, 308, 331.
Mestizo, the oflFspring of mixed unions, 179;
proverb regarding, 332.
MlHiRAKULA, annexes Kashmir, his defeat,
59-
MiKiR tribe, totemism among, 103.
MiNA. See Meo.
MiNDUN, Hamsayah, alien groups among
the Baloch, 64.
Minns, Mr. E. W., on the Scythians, 60.
Mir, a holy man, proverbs regarding, 147.
MIRASI, musicians, grouping in the Census
Report of 1 891, III ; proverb regarding,
325-
MiRi tribe, stature of the, 44.
MiTHRAiSM, the cult of, 243.
Miyan, a Muhammadan holy class, proverbs
regarding, 145, 146, 147, 308, 325, 327,
329-
466
PEOPLE OF INDIA
Mlechha, union of with Brahmans in Nepal,
8S-
MOCHI, the shoemaker caste, low status of,
121 ; in Baluchistan, 124 ; proverbs regard-
ing, 321, 322, 325. SeeMvcKl.
MoDH Baniya caste, proverb regarding, 312.
MODVAL, the washermen caste in the Konkan,
80.
MOGHULS, proverb regarding, 320, 328.
MOHMAND tribe, proverb regarding, 144.
MOLESWORTH, Major, his measurements of
the Andamanese, 32.
MOLONY, Mr. J. C, on caste among Chris-
tians,.8l.
MoMMSEN, T., his " Provinces of the Roman
Empire," 296.
Monarchy and caste, 285.
Mongolian type of men, the, 23, 24.
Mongolo-Dravidian type, the, 33, 40-42.
Mongoloid type, the, 42-44; the tribe, 64;
marriage customs, 187.
MUCHI, the shoemaker caste, distribution of,
126. See MOCHI.
MUDALIAR, a village headman, proverb
regarding, 313.
Muhammad Shahi tribe, the, proverb re-
garding, 145.
ilUHAMMADANS, groups of, 126, 127 ; pro-
portion of girls to boys, 177; marriage
among the, 213, 214 ; causes of increase
of, 246-249 ; popular sayings regarding,
325 ff-
Muhammadanism, statistics of, in India, 246 ;
reasons for the spread of, 246-249.
MuhaNO, fishermen, proverb regarding,
321.
MuiR, Dr. J., his " Original Sanskrit Texts,"
99.
Muklawa, the bringing-home of the bride,
193-
MuKUR tribe, the totemism among, loi.
MuKKUVAN, fishermen, anthropometrical
serrations, 368 f. ; proverb regarding, 330.
MtJLATTOES, offspring of hypergamous unions,
179.
Mdlla, a Muhammadan holy man, proverbs
regarding, 140, 146, 147, 326, 333.
MULLER, W. J., "Die Africanische Land-
schaft Fetu," 225.
MijNDA tribe, the, its constitution, religion,
and customs, 449-454 ; head form, 45 ;
tribal constitution, 63 ; in a serpent legend,
73 ; totemistic exogamous sub-sections, 75,
96 ; intertribal unions, 83 ; connection with
the Kora, 98;
MuRMi tribe, the, nasal index, 44.
MusAHAR, a menial caste, nasal index and
stature, 40; proverb regarding, 317.
MUSALMANS of Bengal, 77 f. ; proverbs re-
garding, 333.
Mysore Act ifor the Prevention of Early
Marriage, 200, 201, 403, 404.
N
Nadaf. See Dhunia.
Naga tribe, the Khel in relation to exogamy,
108; infanticide, 172; proverbs regarding,
140.325-
Nagar Brahmans, anthropometrical serialions,
360 f. ; nasal index, 38 ; hypergamy, 215 ;
-proverbs regarding, 305.
Nagar tribe, head form, 35.
NaGARCHI, the Muhammadan drummer caste,
77-
Nagas, snake deities, 73.
NaGBANSI Rajputs, mythical origin of, 73,
74-
Nai, the barber caste, proverbs regarding,
141,331. See'Nkv, Nafit.
Naikin, the dancing-girl class, proverbs re-
garding, 321.
NamastJdra, Chandal, caste, social status,
120 ; a tribe developed into a caste, 126.
Nambudri, Nambutri, Namputri, Brah-
mans, 90 ; proverb regarding, 306.
Nanakshahi, ascetics, proverb regarding,
143. 325-
Nao Muslim, converts to Islam, 122.
Napit, the barber caste, proverbs regarding,
313.314-
Nasal index, the, 28, 29.
Nasir Khan, founder of the Brahui organisa-
tion, 66.
Nasya, a term applied to Muhammadan con-
verts, 122.
Nat, a gypsy-like caste, proverb regarding,
310.
National castes, 86-88.
Nationality, apparent antagonism with
caste, 284 ; factors of, 287, 288.
Nau, the barber caste, 87 ; proverb regarding,
331. See Nai, Napit.
Navasakha, "the nine branches'' or
" arrows," functional castes in Bengal,
"7-
Nayar, tribe, head form, 45 ; a caste origi-
nally a tribe, 76, 126 ; polyandrous relations
of the women with Nambudri Brahmans,
90 ; grouping in the Census Report of 1891,
III ; ceremonial pollution conveyed by,
115; matriarchal polyandry among, 207-
210; ceremonial and actual husbands of
their women, 209, 210; proverb regarding,
306.
INDEX
467
Negrito type, among the Andamanese, 23,
32 ; no evidence of its existence in India,
32-
Negroid type, tlie, 23.
Nesfield, Mr. J. C, on infant marriage,
188, 189 ; on tlie origin of caste, 265-267,
407-409.
Newar tribe, elaborate organisation, 87;
formerly the predominant race in Nepal,
87.
NiAZi tribe, proverb regarding, 326.
NiCHARi Baloch, proverb regarding, 328.
NiMBALKAR Maratha, hypergamy among, 164.
NiSHADA, described by Ctesias, 17, 18; an
ancient functional group, 260.
Normans in Europe compared with the
Marathas, 35, 75.
Nose, shape of the, an anthropometrical
factor, 28 ; corresponding with the social
grouping, 28, 29.
Nuniar. See Nuniyar.
NuNiYA, salt-makers, proverb regarding, 320.
Nuniyar, Nuniar Baniya, proverbs regard-
ing, 142, 3f2, 331.
O
Occupation, not the sole basis of caste, 269,
270.
OiL-PRESSERS, proverbs regarding, 142, 307,
309, 312, 316 f. See Teli.
Oldenberg, H., "Die Religion des Veda,"
182.
O'Malley, Mr. L. S. S. , on castes arrogating
anew designation, n8 ; on Kulin polygamy,
167 ; on bride and bridegroom price, 169 ;
on infanticide among the Kandhs, 172 ;
on the influence of Brahmans in promoting
infant marriage, 191 ; on the fixation of the
bride price, 206 ; on polygamy in Bengal,
215 ; on the Arya Samaj, 254.
Oraon tribe, stature of, 47 ; septs and totems
among, 95, 102.
Ortolan, J. L. E., "History of Roman
Law," 180.
Pachada tribe, proverb regarding, 325.
Paganism, ancient, compared with modern
Hinduism, 242-245.
Palaung tribe, traditional ancestry of, 103. I
Palissy, Bernard de, on craniometry, 18. |
Pallas, S. P., his account of Shamanism, ,
220. j
Palle, fishermen, proverbs regarding, 314.
Palli caste, head form of, 45 ; nasal index, 46 ;
a caste recently formed from a tribe, 126.
Pamar Rajputs, early consummation of
marriage, 194.
Pan, in the Dialogues of Lucian, 131.
Pan, a tribe of weavers and basket-makers, 91.
Pancharamkatti, a division of the Idaiyan
caste, 94.
Pandaram, beggars, 94.
Paniyan, a, forest tribe, anthropometrical
seriations, 374 f. ; nasal index, 46. ,
Panjabis, physique of, 193, 194.
Panjibaddh, a hypergamous Brahman group,
215-
Pansari, druggists, proverb regarding, 316.
Pantari, fishermen, proverb regarding, 321.
Pantheism, the doctrine of, 237 ; its associa-
tion with metampsychosis, 238, 239.
Paracheri, the ghetto of the Pariahs, 249.
Parasara, on widow marriage, 183.
Parasu Rama, his destruction of the Ksha-
triyas, 74, 92.
Parbattia of Nepal, lofty spirit of, 85.
Parganai r, a Mahili caste official, 97.
Pargiter, Mr. F. E., on ancient territorial
divisions, 157.
Pariah, Paraivan, a menial caste, nasal
index, 46 ; ceremonial pollution caused by,
115; a caste developed from a tribe, 76,
126 ; proverbs regarding, 139, 305, 306, 323.
Paropanisus range, crossed by the Scythians,
58. 59-
Parsi, the, priests of, 324 ; proverbs regarding,
142, 143, 324, 332, 333.
Parthians, their alliance with the Scythians,
S8-
Paschima Brahmans, endogamy, 157.
Pasi, the palm-tapping caste of north India,
washermen in Nepal, 87 ; proverb regarding,
331-
Pashtun tribe, proverb regarding, 327.
Patel, a village headman, proverb regarding,
307-
Pathan tribe, orbito-nasal index, 36 ; dis-
tribution of, 127 ; proverbs regarding, 141,
144. 309. 326, 330-
Patwa, a caste of embroiderers, 78.
Peleus, myth of, compared with that of
Daksha, 99.
Penka, K., on the form of the Aryan head, 49.
Peschel, O. F., classification of ethnical types,
24; on Shamanism, 221.
Petheram, Sir C, on intermingling of race
stocks, 292, 293.
Physical characters, definite, 16 ; in-
definite, 13 ; types, 32 ; dominant influence
in formation of, 276.
Pilgrimages, facilitated by railways, 218.
468
PEOPLE OF INDIA
PiNjARA, the cotton-teasing caste, proverb
regarding, 327.
PiR, a holy man, proverb regarding, 147-
PiRAU Brahmans, social status of, 1 16.
Po, a menial caste in Nepal, 87.
Pod, a tribe of fishermen, transformed into a
caste, 76, 126 ; fission arising from education,
77 ; social status of, 120 ; development of
hypergamy among, 164.
Pollution, ceremonial, conveyed by contact
with certain castes, 1 1 J.
Polyandry, 206-212 ; matriarchal form in
Malabar, 207 ; fraternal form in Tibet and
Sikkim, 210 ; origin of, 212 ; proverb
regarding, 310.
Portuguese, the, originate the term " caste,"
67.
Potters, proverbs regarding, 134, 315. See
KUMHAR.
POWAR Maratha, hypergamy among, 164.
Prabhu, the clerk caste, anthropometrical
seriations, 362 f. ; head form of, 38.
Prajapo, " tenants' son," a term applied to
the Shagirdpesha, 84.
Prakrit, the form of speech, 61.
Prasad Sen, Guru, "Introduction to the
Study of Hinduism," 232, 282.
Prehistoric evidence, scanty in India, 4.
Primary ethnical types, 22-25.
Prinsep, Sir H. T., on Kulin polygamy,
424.
Prithi Narayan, Gorkha conqueror of
Nepal, 87.
Prohibition of commensality with other
castes, 268.
Proverbs and popular sayings regarding
caste, 128-153, 305-333 ; bibliography of,
152, 153.
Pulaivan caste, stature of, 46 ; ceremonial
pollution conveyed by, 115.
Punjab, the supposed cradle of the Aryan
race, 50.
PuRi, temple of Jagannath at, 73.
PURUSHA Sukta, the, of the Veda, 261.
Qais Abdul Rashid, the legendary ancestor
of the Pathans, 64.
Qazi, a Muhammadan judge, proverbs regard-
ing, 326, 331. SeeKf^l.
Quadroon, the offspring of hypergamous
unions, 179.
Quetelet, L. a. J., on the Greek canon of
the human form, 16.
Quetta, march of Krateros from, 53.
R
Railways, influence of on caste, 123 ; on
religion, 217, 218.
Rain-making rites by Kochh women, 226.
Raisani Brahiii, proverb regarding, 145.
Rajbansi Barua, mixed parentage of, 86 ;
Kochh, language of, 1 1 ; a caste transformed
from a tribe, 76'; social status of, 120; a
caste of recent formation, 126 ; Magh, head
form of, 40 ; Bhanga Kshatriya, aborigines
enrolled in Hinduism, 74 ; of Rangpur,
endogamy among, 99.
Rajgor, the, widow marriage among, 94.
Rajput, anthropometrical seriations, 356 f. ;
physical type, 37 ; theory of their origin, xx,
60 ; leading men of aboriginal tribes raised
to this rank, 72-74; transformation from
tribe to caste, 76 ; widow marriage, 93 ;
grouping in the Census Report of 1891,
III ; position in the social scale, 113, 116 ;
deferred consummation of marriage, 193 ;
endogamy among, 156 ; female infanticide,
and hypergamy, 173; proverbs regarding,
141, 308, 317, 331.
Rakhal caste, proverb regarding, 332.
Rama, Dasaratha, father of, reputed ancestor
of the Kochh, 74.
Ramayat, a religious sect, 74.
Ramdasi ascetics, proverb regarding, 320.
Ranchi, in the legend of Nagbansi origin,
73-
Rangar tribe, proverbs regarding, 308, 317,
322-
Rangari, dyers, proverb regarding, 321.
Rangpur, the Kochh at, 74.
Rangsaz, painters and dyers, proverb regard-
ing, 321.
Rarhi Brahmans, legend of origin, 90 ; social
position, n6 ; a territorial or local group,
157.
Rathi sept, practice of widow marriage, 94 ;
high proportion of women among, 178 ;
proverb regarding, 315.
RazIl, "worthless," a term applied to low
caste Muhammadans and converts, 122.
Reddi, the cultivating caste, proverbs regard-
ing, 3H-
Registan, the desert, 52.
Religion, the beginnings of, 227 ; its rela-
tions to caste, 216-256 ; the ghost theory of,
228.
Render, tappers of palm trees, 80.
Retzius, a., the naturalist, 18.
Rhys Davids, T. W., "Buddhist India,"
260.
RiGVEDA, the, on widow sacrifice, 182.
Rind Baloch, proverbs regarding, 145, 328.
INDEX
469
Ripley, Prof. W. Z., on the Himalaya, 42,
43-
RiVAROL, A., on proverbs, 129.
Rivers, Dr. W. H. R., on cross-cousin
marriage, 162 ; on infanticide among the
Todas, 177, 178.
RiviER, M., "Principes du Droit des Gens,"
293-
Roman Catholic Christians, caste among,
80, 81.
Romesh Chandra Dutt, Mr., on aboriginal
blood in the Bengali, 56.
Rose, Mr. H. A., on hypergamy, 166 ; on
female infanticide, 176, 177 ; on the Alcbari
Jats, 180.
Russell, Lord John, his definition of a
proverb, 129.
Russell, Mr. R. V., on the Garpagari caste,
77 ; on Brahman marriage, 89 ; on the
Baraik, 91, 92 ; on totemism, 102.
Sadgop caste, the, change of occupation
among, 77.
Sadh sect, endogamy among, 79.
Sadhva-Srotiya, the, hypergamy among,
164.
Sahukar, Saukar, merchants, proverb re-
garding, 312.
Saint-Hilaire, M. B., on Christianity in
India, 250.
St. Thomas Christians, 82.
Saiva sect, proverbs regarding, 324.
Saiyad, a Muhammadan holy man, a Mu-
hammadan group, distribution of, 127 ;
proverbs regarding, 319, 324, 325, 327.
Saka, a national or tribal group, 260 ; the
Scythians, 58, 59.
Sakala, the Hun capital, 59.
Sakuha, the Scythian, his image at Behistun,
58.
Salat, Silavat, the stone-carver caste,
proverbs regarding, 321.
Samanta, Rai Sahib Kumud Bihari,
measurements made by, 81.
Sambandham, " association," a marriage rite
of the Nayars, 209.
Sanchi Tope, the, symbolical carving on, 5.
Sandilya gotra, the, transformation of, 97.
Sankari, the shell-cutting caste, complexion
of, IS-
Sanni Baloch, the, proverb regarding, 145,
327-
Sannyasi, the ascetic class, a sect becoming
a caste, 79 ; proverb regarding, 324.
Santal tribe, its ethnology, religion, and
customs, 441-449 ; anthropometrical seria-
tions, 372 f. ; head form, 45 ; totemistic
exogamous sections, 75, 95 ; possible con-
nection with the Mahili, 97 ; classification
in the Census Reports, 109 ; a. localised
tribal group, 126 ; endogamy, 156; close
marriage alliances on the mother's side,
163 ; worship of Marang Buru, 227 ; form
of judicial oath, 233.
Sarak, said to have been Buddhists, now
forming a caste, 79.
Saraogi Baniya, proverb regarding, 312.
Sarat Chandar Roy, on the Munda tribe,
83-
Sardar Arjun Singh, his scheme of mar-
riage reform, 203, 204,
Sassoli Brahui, proverb regarding, 145.
Saukar. See Sahukar.
Saurashtra Brahman, a title adopted by the
Kamalakar, 162.
Scandinavia, supposed cradle of the Aryans,
49-
Schlegel, F. von, on philology, 7 ; on the
origin of the Indo-Aryans, 50.
Schmidt, on the classification of the human
race, 21.
Sclater, p. L., on the continent of Lemuria,
47-
Scott, Sir J. G., on totemism in Burma, 103,
104.
Scythians, in India, 57-59 ; supposed an-
cestors of the Marathas, 61, xx., xxi.
Scytho-Dravidian type, the, 33, 38, 39.
Sectarian castes of Hindus, 78-82.
Seeley, Sir J., on religion and nationality,
291.
Segistan, 58.
Seistan, march of Krateros to, 53.
Semang, a Negrito tribe of Malacca, 23.
Senart, M. E., description of caste, 68, 69,
418-422 ; his criticism of Sir D. Ibbetson's
theory, 264.
Sergi, G., on the Aryan head form, 49.
Shagirdpesha caste, the, 83-85 ; connection
with Kayasths, 84.
SHAKESPEAR,Lieut.-Colonel J., on totemism,
103.
Shamanism, principles of, 220-222 ; origi-
nated in Siberia, 220 ; general resemblance
to Spiritualism, 221.
Shanan, Shanar caste, the, head form and
stature, 45, 46 ; proverb regarding, 319.
Shaw, Mr. G. B., on Kulin polyandry,
426-429.
Shekh, a Muhammadan group, their social
status, 121 ; proverb regarding, 327.
Shim PI, the tailor caste, proverbs regarding,
142. 330-
SlAO, the Little Yuechi, 59.
470
PEOPLE OF INDIA
SlDDHA-SiiOTiYA, the, hypergamy among,
164.
SIDGWICK, Prof. H., on the factors of
nationality, 287.
Sim. See ICaphri.
Sikhs, infanticide among, 177; proportion
of girls to boys, 177.
SiKLiGAR, the cutler caste, proverb regard-
ing, 331-
SiLLis, the river Jaxartes,- 57.
SiNDHIA, Kurmis of Bihar claim* kinship
with, 93.
SiNDUR, a sept of the Miinda, 96.
Siva, not invited to Daksha's sacrifice, 99.
SlVAJl, Kurmis of Bihar claim kinship with
93 ; worship of, 229.
SlYALGlR, a wandering tribe, 11.
Skanda Gupta, the Emperor, 59.
Skanda PaRANA, the, on Kayasth descent
from Kshatriya, 92.
Smeaton, Mr. D. M., on the totemism of the
Karens, 104.
Smith, use of the name as describing exogamy
and endogamy, 69, 70.
Smith, Mr. V. A., on the geographical isola-
tion of India, 2 ; on the Scythians and
Huns, 59, 60.
Smith, Dr. W. R., on totemism, 105.
Social, divisions in India, 62 ; precedence of
Hindus of Bengal, 116-121 ; of Muham-
madans, 121-123.
SoGDiANA, occupied by the Scythians, 58 ;
by the Ephthalites, 59.
Sonar, the goldsmith caste, proverbs regard-
ing, I34i 141, 3I4, 331-
SoNDHiA, a reputed group of degraded Raj-
puts, 102.
SoN-KoLl, their orbito-nasal index, 38.
SoNi caste, discontinue widow marriage, 94.
Sparethra, the Scythian queen, repulses the
Persians, 58.
Spencer, Prof. B., Gillen, Mr. F. J., on
totemism in Australia, 104-105.
Spencer, Mr. H., on totemism, 105.
Spiegel, F., " Eranische Alterthumskunde,"
261.
Sraddha, the mind-rite for the dead, 183.
Sreshta, ministers and officials among the
Newar, 87.
Srimali Brahmans, proverbs regarding,
306.
SrI Panchami festival, the, 235, 236.
Srotia, Sotk, a hypergamous Brahman
group, 215.
SsE, the Chinese name for the Scythians, 57-
Stack, Mr. E., on totemism in Assam,, 103.
Stahl, G. E., the metaphysical doctrine of,
222.
Statistics, of marriage, 2 1 2, 2 1 3 ; of religions,
246.
Stature in Europe and India, 31, 32.
Strabo, his description of Kirman, 53, 54.
Sturrock, Mr. J., on marriages among
Christians, 81.
SuBARNABANiK, the merchant caste, social
status of, 119, 120.
SuDiR, Sudra, a. caste of Roman Catholic
Christians, 80.
Si'DRA, the menial class, origin of, 76; not
recognised as a modern group, 1 14 ;
Kayasths said to be, 116; proverbs regard-
ing, 140, 307, 330, 332.
SUNDHIA. See SONDHIA.
SOnri, the distiller caste, their social status,
118.
SUPPALTG, musicians, totemism among, loi.
Supreme Beings, not the object of worship,
226.
Suryabansi Mal, the old royal family of the
Newar, 87.
SuT, SlJTA, a term applied to children of
mixed unions, 86 ; a functional group of
charioteers, 260.
SuTAR, the carpenter caste, proverbs regarding,
135. 316.
SwAMi, the, of Akalkot, worshipped as
Dattatreya, 229.
Sykes, Major P. M., on deserts in Persia,
54-
Syrian Christians, hair colour, 16; caste
among the, 81, 82.
Ta, the Great Yuechi, 59.
Tagher caste, widow marriage among, 94.
"Tagore Law Lectures," 1879, on the
position of the widow, 183.
Tajik, the, of Bactriana, 59.
Takshak, the king of the snakes, 73,
Talaing tribe, supposed affinity to the
Palaung, 1 03.
Tali-kettu, a marriage rite of the Nayars,
209.
Tamaria, a territorial or local group of the
Bhumij, 157.
Tamboli, a betel-seller, proverb regarding,
331-
Tanti, the weaver caste, proverb regarding,
320.
Tapodhan Brahmans, widow marriage among,
94.
Tarins, nasal index of the, 36.
Tarwar, Talwar, a sept of the Mundas,
totemism among, 96.
INDEX
471
Teli, Tili, the caste of oil-pressers, 76 ;
their distribution, I26 ; proverbs regarding,
142, 309, 312, 316, 317, 330.
Telugu people, proverb regarding, 329.
Territorial, exogaraous divisions, 161.
Thag, robbers, proverbs regarding, 313,
325-
Thakkar caste, rejects widow marriage, 94 ;
proverb regarding, 331.
Thakur, supposed ancient rulers in Nepal,
86 ; a title of the barbers, 314.
Tharu tribe, their classification in the Census
Report of 1891, iii.
Thathera, a brass-worker, popular sayings
regarding, 313, 320.
Theodosian Code, the, 270, 271.
Thomas, Mr. O., his method of nose measure-
ment, 30.
Thugaung, tribe, endogamy among, 124.
Thurston, Mr. E., measurements by, xix.,
21, 45 ; on cross-cousin marriage, 162 ; on
the Meriah sacrifice post, 63 ; on the name
Pariah, 1 39 ; on totemism, 103.
Thyagaraja AiYAR, Mr., on the Mysore
Marriage Act, 201.
Tibetans, the, orbito-nasal index of, 44.
TiGALA, the gardener caste, proverb regarding,
325-
Till See Teli.
TiRHUTiA, a sub-caste title due to emigration,
88.
Titular or nickname groups, 161.
TlYAN caste, the, head form of, 45.
Toda tribe, the, infanticide among, 177, 178.
TOKHARI, the, defeated by the Huns, 59.
Topinard, M. p., on the record of skin
colour, 14 ; on the Greek canon of the
human body, 16 ; on skull measurement,
18 ; on the classification of human types, 21.
TORAMANA, the leader of the Ephthalites, 59.
Totemism in India, 95-105 ; theory of, 105-
107 ; and exogamy, 107-109.
Tragala Brahmans, widow marriage among,
94-
Transmigration and Karma, 238, 239.
Transoxiana, occupied by the Scythians, 58.
Tribe, types of the, 62-67 ; converted into
castes, 72-75.
Turk, the popular sayings regarding, 141,
327. 332.
Turkestan, occupied by the Scythians, 57.
Turk-Naia, barbers, 78.
TURKO-IRANIAN, physical type, 33, 35-37 ;
types of tribe, 64-67.
Turner, Sir W., on Oriya skulls, 19, 20; on
Andamanese skulls, 32.
Turushka, the Hindu title of the Scythians,
59.
Tylor, Sir E. B., on the widow sacrifice,
182 ; on fetishism, 220 ; on Animism, 222,
223.
U
UcHAi Thakurs of Nepal, origin of, 86.
Udbaru sept of the Miindas, totemism among,
96.
Ujfalvy, M. K. J., on the appearance of the
Dards, 36 ; of the Kirghiz, 58.
Uttariya, "northern," a title of territorial
or local groups, 157.
Uttar-Rarhi Kayasths, marriage difficulties
aiising from hypergamy, 170.
Vadar tribe, totemism among, 100.
Vadhel tribe, widow marriage allowed by,
94.
Vaideha, an ancient local or territorial
group, 260.
Vaidik Brahmans, take water from the
Subarnabanik, 119.
Vaidu, herbalists, use of two languages, 12.
Vaishnava sect, aborigines converted to, 74 ;
Brahmans, proverbs regarding, 306 ; as-
cetics, proverb regarding, 324.
Vaisya, an agricultural and trading group,
in the Census Report of 1891, 113; claim
of the Subarnabanik to be descended from,
119; prpverb regarding, 332.
Van Gennep, Mr. A., on hypergamy in
Madagascar, 180.
Vansittart, Col. E., on the Khas of Nepal,
86.
Vedic ritual, magic in the, 228 ; survivals of
primitive belief in, 230.
Veddah tribe, included in the melanochroid
group, 24.
Vellala, a caste of cultivators, anthropo-
metric seriations, 366 f. ; nasal index of,
46 ; a tribe transformed into a caste, 76 ;
proverbs regarding, 305, 311, 331.
Vena, musicians, an ancient functional group,
260.
ViDUR caste, claim Brahman parentage, 86.
Vinci, Leonardo da, on the study of the
proportions of the human body, 16, 17.
ViRCHOW, R., on the classification of the
types of man, 21.
Virendranath Chattopadhyaya, on Kulin
polygamy, 430.
VlTRUVius, his canon of the human form,
16.
472
PEOPLE OF INDIA
Voltaire, A. de, on proverbs, 128.
Vratya, outcasts degraded from higher
castes, 92.
Vredenburg, Mr. E., on the geology of
Baluchistan, 51.
Vyasokta Brahmans, low status of, 116 ;
widow marriage among, 94.
Vyas Saraswat Brahmans, widow marriage
among, 94,
W
Waddell, Lt.-Col. L. A., measurements
carried out by, 22 ; on the ethnology of the
Kochh, 41, 42 ; on the nasal index of the
Garos, 44.
Waghia tribe, proverb regarding, 325.
Walterkrit Rajputra Hitakarini Sabha,
marriage regulations enforced by, 196-199.
Was of Burma, totemism among the, 103.
Westermaeck, Prof. E., on infant and
widow marriage, 155.
Widow marriage, permitted in Vedic
times, 182 ; popular feeling about its ex-
tension, 185, 186 ; among Muhammadans,
214; shaving of widows, 313; proverbs
regarding, 310.
Xanthochroid type, the, 24
Yajur Veda, the, instance of female in-
fanticide in, 166.
Yashvantrao, worship of, 229.
Yeruva tribe, measurements of, 21, 22.
YUECHI, the, 58, 59 ; Great and Little, 59.
Yule, Sir H., on the word "caste," 67, 68.
YusAF Ali, Mr., on the uniformity of Indian
life, 299.
Zahri Baloch, proverb regarding, 328.
Zai, a tribal group in Baluchistan, 66.
Zarakzai Baloch, proverb regarding, 328.
ZiMMER, H., on widow marriage in the
Vedic age, 182 ; on the lustration of the
bride's clothing, 189.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND UECCLES.
PLATE I.
From a Photograph by Dr. Simpson.
KHAMTI FEMALE.
The chief seat of the Khamtis, who are a branch of
the Shan or Tai race, is in Bor Khamti, a Province
of Burma, on the Upper Irrawady. Several colonies
from thence have settled in Upper Assam on both
banks of the Brahmaputra River, east of Sadiya.
They are Buddhists in religion, and by far the
most intelligent of the tribes of the North-Eastern
Frontier.
This is a very typical representation of a young
Khamti woman. The elevation of the hair on the
crown of the head indicates that she is married, and
the style is recommended as dignified and becoming.
Unmarried girls wear it in a roll low down on the
occiput. They are exceedingly industrious, spin,
weave, dye, and embroider, and can themselves make
up all that they wear. The jacket is ordinarily
of cotton, dyed blue ; the petticoat of the same
material, and round the waist a coloured silk scarf as
a sash. But the dress of the lady in the illustration
is of richer material — black velvet bodice and silk
skirt. The ear ornaments are of amber.
PLATE I.
PLATE II.
From a Photograph by Dr. Simpson.
CHULIKATA WOMAN.
A typical, but not a favourable specimen of a Chuli-
kata, or crop-haired, Mishmi woman. This tribe
occupies the hills north of Sadiya, but their country
is so difficult of access, that very little is known
about it. They trade between Tibet and Assam,
when at peace ; but they are considered the most
treacherous and aggressive of all the North-Eastern
tribes, though more skilled in arts and manu-
factures than their neighbours, the Abors to the
East, and the Mishmis to the West, They are
called Chulikata, or crop-haired, from their having
originated the modern fashion of cutting the hair
straight across the forehead. The men cut theirs to-
, the level of the rims of their wicker helmets as far
as the back of the ear ; both sexes wear it long
behind.
I'LATE II.
PLATES III & IV.
From Photographs by Dr. Simpson.
MALE AND FEMALE OF THE TAIN OR
DIGARU MISHMI TRIBE.
These are both good average specimens of the tribe.
They are, as a rule, fairer and with softer features
than the Abors, acquiring from their journeys across
the snow a becoming ruddiness of complexion.
The young women have generally pretty figures,
which their costume shows to advantage. The
frontlet, a thin plate of bright silver, is a picturesque
and becoming ornament, worn on the forehead by
all women who can afford it. They are a quiet,
inoffensive people, occupying the hills and skirts of
the hills between the Digaru and Dilli Rivers, two
of the north hill-affluents of the Brahmaputra, and
devoting themselves chiefly to trade.
PLATE III.
PLATE IV.
PLATE V.
From a Photograph by Dr. Simpson.
BOR ABOR GIRL.
A Bor Abor girl, belonging probably to some village
near the great Dihong River in the Sub-Himalayan
range. These ladies crop their hair all round as
the least troublesome method of disposing of it.
The illustration gives a capital representation of their
strongly marked Mongolian features, and their coarse,
good-tempered faces. This young girl's costume and
the ornaments are all apparently from the North ;
the blue vitreous turquoise-like beads, which our glass
manufacturers cannot imitate, and cornelian and agate
pebbles.
PLATE V.
PLATE VI.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY DR. SiMPSON.
A CHULIKATA MISHMI CHIEF IN FULL
DRESS.
PLATE VI.
PLATES VII & VIII.
MALE AND FEMALE OF THE LOWER NAGA
GROUP.
These are admirable illustrations of one of the Naga
tribes, who are found in the hills south of the
Nowgong district, between the Doyang and Kopili
Rivers, in the Assam Province. There is nothing
that I know of except the name to connect these
clans with the tribes east of the Doyang. Their
features are harsher, more decidedly Mongolian ; and
their language, which is quite different, associates
them with the Manipuri and Kuki tribes and their
cognates.
PLATE VII.
PLATE VIII.
„■■-■ -.1*
PLATES IX & X.
From Photographs by Dr. Simpson.
LEPCHAS (SIKKIM).
The Lepchas are found in Western Bhutan, Eastern
Nepal, and in the small State between both, called
Sikkim. They are well known at Darjeeling.
PLATE IX.
PLATE X.
PLATES XI & XII.
Photographed by Dr. Simpson.
LIMBU, MALE AND FEMALE.
The very respectable-looking gentleman here repre-
sented and the richly bedizened old lady belong, I
presume, to the upper class of Limbu society. The
Limbus or Kirantis are represented by Mr. Hodgson
and others as approximating in appearance to the
darker Turanian race in colour and feature, but the
old lady is apparently of light complexion, and has
a very Mongolian type of face.
Note. — The use of Kiranti as a synonym for Limbu is not strictly correct.
The Limbu tribe is only one member of the Kiranti group, which in-
cludes also the Khambu (Rai or Rai Jimdar) and the Yakha. The term
Turanian is now obsolete as a race designation.
H. H. R.
PLATE XL
PLATE XII.
PLATE XIII.
From a Photograph by Dr. Simpson.
A 'HO' OR KOL OF SINGHBHUM.
This is a good typical representation of a young
Singhbhum Ho or Kol of the clan, or Kili, Koadadah.
In his right hand he grasps the national weapon
called 'tangi.' This division of the Kols, called
also the Larka, or warlike Kols, are found only in
Singhbhum.
PLATE XIII.
PLATES XIV & XV.
From Photographs by Dr. Simpsom.
MUNDAS OF CHUTIA NAGFUR, MALE AND
FEMALE.
The above are Mundas of villages close to Ranchi,
the capital of the Province of Chutia Nagpur, who
living with Oraons have adopted their style of decor-
ation. They are good typical representatives of the
race, though not handsome specimens. They show
the breadth of face and obliquity of eye,*which affirm
the north-eastern origin ascribed to them.
Note. — The Mundas are now generally classed as Dravidians and the theory
of their ' no/th-eastern origin ' has been abandoned.
• H. H. R.
PLATE XIV.
PLATE XV.
PLATE XVI.
From a Photograph bv Dr. Simpson.
A GROUP OF KORWAS.
This is one of the wildest of the Kolarian tribes.
They are found in the hills of the Sarguja and Jash-
pur States in the Province of Chutia Nagpur.
PLATE XVI.
PLATES XVII & XVII I.
From Photographs by Dr. Simpson.
ORAONS, MALE AND FEMALE.
These are very fair specimens of the great Oraon
tribe who have been sometimes called the ' navvies '
of India. The nijcleus of the tribe is in Chutia
Nagpur proper, from whence they have spread as
settlers to all the surrounding districts, and as
labourers to Assam, Kachar, Mauritius, the West
Indies, and other British and. French Colonies.
PLATE XVII.
PLATE XVIII.
PLATES XIX & XX.
From Photographs by the late Mr. Tosco PeppE.
JUANG MAN AND GIRLS.
The photographs of the young Juang man and girls
were taken by the late Mr. Tosco Peppe at Gonasika
in Keonjhar, one of the Cuttack Tributary States, the
legendary cradle of the race. The young. man keeps
his spare arrows hanging by the barbs from his matted
black hair, as is also the custom of the Korwas. The
beads or bugles forming the girdles worn by the girls
are of fine earthenware made by themselves. The
bracelets are of brass and the necklaces of glass beads
or flowers. The rest of the attire is of leaves. Mr.
Peppe had immense difficulty in inducing these wild
timid creatures to pose before him, and it was not
without many a tear that they resigned themselves to
the ordeal. It is right to mention that they were
brought in from the forest, where they had been search-
ing for their daily bread, which chiefly consists of
forest produce, and their leaves were not as neatly
arranged as they would have been if the girls had had
time to make a fresh toilette.
Note. — The origin of Juang millinery is obscure. According to one legend
the goddess of the Baitarni river caught a party of Juangs dancing naked,
and ordained for the women, on pain of divine displeasure, the costume
shown in the illustration. This consists of the young shoots of any tree
with long soft leaves, stuck through the girdle in front and behind, and
suitably draped. As long as the leaves are fresh they are comfortable
enough ; when they get dry they are unpleasantly prickly. For the men
the goddess prescribed a shred of bark from the Tumba tree, which has
now given place to an exiguous strip of cloth. The Juang ladies, accord-
ing to Colonel Dalton, repudiated this scandalous tale, and alleged that
their attire expressed their genuine conviction that women's dress should
be cheap and simple, and that fashions should never change. How much
this was worth was seen a year or so later when a sympathetic Political
Agent took the prevailing fashion in hand. An open air durbar, fitted
out with a tent and a bonfire, was held in the Juang hills. One by one
the women of the tribe filed into the tent and were robed by a female
attendant in Manchester saris provided at the Agent's expense. As they
came out they cast their discarded Swadeshi attire into the bonfire.
Thus ended a picturesque survival.
PLATE XIX.
PLATE XX.
PLATES XXI & XXII.
From Photographs by the late Mr. Tosco PEPPii.
MALE AND FEMALE OF THE BENDKAR
TRIBE.
I have assigned to the Bendkars of Keonjhar a re-
lationship with the Sauras or Savaras. They have
only been met with in Keonjhar, and they are found
there in small communities widely separated. The
man holds the only implement that they use in
tillage. It is the origin of the plough ! The handle
with the crook is all one piece of wood ; in the
illustration the crook is made to appear as if it was
fitted on to the handle, but this is incorrect, there is
no joint, and there should have been no shade at
the junction. The only use they ever make of cattle
is to offer them as sacrifice to the gods. Thus we
have in the Bendkars a people who in their agricul-
ture use neither iron nor cattle.
Note. — The typical form of the Bendkar plough is a straight piece of a branch
of a tree with a shorter piece of another branch growing out of it. The
long piece forms the handle, the short one the share.
H. H. R.
PLATE XXI.
PLATE XXII.
PLATE XXIII.
From a Photograph received from Mr. E. H. Mann.
A GROUP OF ANDAMANESE AT GOVERNMENT
HOUSE, PORT BLAIR, ANDAMAN ISLANDS:
NEGRITO TYPE.
The Andamanese represent a type found only in these
islands, and have affinity with no other race on the
Indian continent. They are probably a remnant of a
Negrito people at one time inhabiting Burma or the
Malay Peninsula. In ancient times the Andaman
Islands seem to have been connected with the Malay
Peninsula, and thus migration became possible. As
regards physical characteristics, the Andamanese are
short in stature, the skin when dean is black, and the
hair so excessively woolly, that when separated from
the head, it is almost unrecognisable as human hair.
They are nomadic, having, generally speak'ing, no fixed
dwelling-places. Their numbers have considerably
decreased owing to infertility, high infant mortality,
an increase in the death-rate among adults, the last
due to change of environment under the influence of
civilisation, and to imported diseases.
PLATE XXIII.
PLATE XXIV.
From a Photograph by Major Nicolas, Dera
Ghazi Khan.
SUBAHDAR-MAJOR SHER BAHADUR KHAN,
KAISRANI BALOCH : TURKO-IRANIAN TYPE.
The Baloch are believed to have entered their present
territory from the west in the 14th and iSth centuries
A.D. They are a fine, manly race, expert horsemen,
and fight well under officers whom they know and
trust. The ordinary tribesman usually carries a sword,
knife, and shield, and rides to combat, but fights on
foot. In physical characteristics they present a contrast
to their Afghan neighbours, being shorter in build,
more spare and wiry. The hair is usually worn long,
in oily curls, and cleanliness is considered a mark of
effeminacy. They have a bold bearing, frank manner,
and are fairly truthful. Courage is the highest virtue,
and hospitality a sacred duty. Owing to their custom
of admitting outsiders into their septs, they are hetero-
geneous in origin. Their adherence to Islam is little
more than a veneer over their primitive Animism, but,
unlike the Afghan, they are seldom fanatical.
PLATE XXIV.
PLATE XXV.
Photograph by Pandtt Giraj Kishor Dutt, Rai
Bahadur.
PANDIT DULI CHAND, VIDYAPATI BRAHMAN
OF AGRA: INDO-ARYAN TYPE.
This is a fine picture of the old-fashioned, learned
Brahman of Northern India, whose life is devoted to
the study of Sanskrit literature and the observance
of an intricate form of ritual. He has been little
influenced by Western culture. He wears wooden
clogs, held between his toes by a brass peg, because
the touch of leather is a source of ceremonial pollution.
He carries a rosary, by the help of which he mutters
prayers or holy texts, and recites the names of the
Deity whom he worships. He is in many ways like
the Nambutiri Brahman of Malabar, the most
primitive type of Brahman. But the latter have
preserved their isolation more successfully than their
Northern brethren, who have lived for centuries
under foreign Governments. His title Vidyapati
implies that he is a master of learning.
PLATE XXV.
PLATE XXVI.
From a Photograph received from Rai Bahadur
B. A. GuPTE.
A GROUP OF SUTARS, CARPENTERS, BENGAL:
MONGOLO-DRAVIDIAN TYPE.
The carpenters of Bengal, like other craftsmen, hold
a low rank, and Brahmans will not take water from
their hands. Besides ordinary work in wood, they
carve conch-shells into bracelets, make images of the
gods, and paint religious pictures. They are probably
recruited from the non-Aryan or indigenous races.
Their chief object of worship is Visvakarma, the divine
architect of the Universe, sometimes represented as a
white man with three eyes and bearing a club ; but
more usually he is symbolised by the tools used by
the householder, which are set up and decorated with
flowers ; offerings are presented to them, and the god
is besought to favour his votaries in their profession
during the coming year.
PLATE XXVI.
PLATE XXVII.
From a Photograph received from Rai Bahadur
B. A. GuPTE.
A GROUP OF MOCHIS, SHOEMAKERS, BENGAL:
MONGOLO-DRAVIDIAN TYPE.
The Mochis or Muchis are a branch of the Chamar
caste, whose business is tanning leather. Their
association with this material renders them impure
in the estimation of high-caste Hindus. The Mochis'
chief business is the making of the slipper-like shoes
worn by their customers. They also, as in the illustra-
tion, manufacture drums. The covering is made of goat
skins, while strips of cowhide are used for tightening
the parchment. In all native drums, at one or both
ends, black circles are inscribed with a paste of iron
filings and rice in order to improve the pitch. Muchi
women never act as midwives, like those of the Chamar
caste.
PLATE XXVII.
PLATE XXVIII.
From a Photograph received from Rai Bahadur
B. A. GuPTE.
A GROUP OF KAMARS, BLACKSMITHS,
BIHAR: MONGOLO-DRAVIDIAN TYPE.
The Kamars of Bihar are distinguished from the
Lohars, the ordinary blacksmiths of Northern India,
by not confining themselves to working in iron. They
work in gold and silver also, and in Eastern Bengal
make cooking vessels of brass and other similar alloys.
Hence they hold a higher rank than the Lohars, and
Brahmans will take water from their hand. They
pride themselves on not allowing their women to wear
noserings. Like other artizan castes, they worship
Visvakarma, the divine architect of the Universe, who
is often represented by the hammer, anvil, and other
tools used in their handicraft.
PLATE XXVIII.
PLATE XXIX.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Johnston and
Hoffmann, Calcutta.
A KUMBU FROM NEPAL: MONGOLOID TYPE.
The Kumbus are one of the Nepal tribes which supply
recruits to our Gurkha regiments. Their religion is
nominally Buddhism, but their real faith is a form of
primitive Animism.. Some of them bury their dead;
others cremate the corpse on a hill top, and throw the
ashes in the air. At a funeral a man of the tribe
recites texts, supposed to lay at rest the spirit of the
deceased, and to prevent it from annoying the
survivors.
PLATE XXIX.
PLATE XXX.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Johnston and '
Hoffmann, Calcutta.
A LAMA WOMAN FROM THE TIBETAN
FRONTIER: MONGOLOID TYPE.
Lama or La-ma is a Tibetan word meaning " Superior
One," and was formerly restricted to the head of a
monastery. It-is now strictly applicable only to abbots
and to the higher class of Buddhist monks, though out
of courtesy it is given to almost all monks and priests,
and on the British frontier it is extended to a sept of
the Gurung tribe. In many families the first-born son
is often dedicated to the profession of religion. As
in the case of the lady in the illustration, to use the
words of Lt.-Col. Waddell : "Their inveterate craving
for material protection against malignant gods and
demons has caused them to pin their faith on charms
. and amulets, which are to be seen everywhere dangling
from the dress of every man, woman, and child."
PLATE XXX.
PLATE XXXI.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Johnston and
Hoffmann, Calcutta.
A LEPCHA FROM SIKKIM : MONGOLOID TYPE.
The Lepchas are a Mongolian tribe, found in Sikkim,
western Bhutan, eastern Nepal, and Darjiling. They
are short in stature, of fair complexion, and their features
are markedly Mongolian. The total absence of beard
and the fashion of parting the hair along the crown of
the head add to a somewhat feminine expression of
countenance in the men, and the use of a jacket like a
loose bed-gown, with wide sleeves, contributes still more
to the difficulty of distinguishing the sexes, especially
in middle age. Their dirty habits render them un-
pleasant inmates of a close dwelling, but in the rainy
season, when they move about and are frequently wet,
they become partially clean. They are remarkably
honest, and seldom quarrel among themselves. When
they are ill-treated, they escape to the jungle and live
on yams and other innutritious vegetables. They are
nominally Buddhists. They have no caste prejudices
about food, but in Nepal they are obliged to conform
to the law prohibiting the slaughter of cattle. Pork is
their favourite dish, but they will eat carrion, the flesh
of a dead elephant being specially prized.
PLATE XXXI.
^
PLATE XXXII.
From a Photograph by Messrs. Johnston and
Hoffmann, Calcutta.
THE MAHARANI OF NEPAL, WITH
ATTENDANTS : MIXED INDO-ARYAN AND
MONGOLOID TYPES.
The Gurkhas, the ruhng race of Nepal, who defeated
the indigenous Newars and occupied the country in
1769 A.D., are the result of a mixture of fugitives of
Rajputs and other high-caste people of the Plains, who
escaped to the hills during the Muhammadan invasion
of the 1 2th century, and on their arrival in Nepal
formed alliances with the Newars. The remarkable
skirt worn by the Maharani in the illustration has
been described in a lively fashion by Lady Dufferin :
" The first view of her was that of a mass of light .
gauze above and a pair of legs clothed in white
trousers below. The thin pink and yellow striped
material was not a petticoat, and I am quite at a loss
to imagine how it was put on, or how many hundred
yards were in it. It looked just as if a great piece
had been unrolled, and unrolled, and then picked up
and half wound round and half carried by the wearer.
When she sat down it was in a great fluff, and when
PLATE XXXII.
PLATE XXXI H.
Photograph received from Mr. E. Thurston, CLE.
A SHOLAGA FROM THE NfLGIRI HILLS,
MADRAS: PURE DRA VIDIAN TYPE.
The Sholagas are a jungle tribe inhabiting the British
District of Coimbatore and the adjoining parts of the
Mysore State. They live on millet paste and yams,
supplemented by sundry jungle animals and birds,
but they will not eat parroquets, which they say are
their children. Their main occupation is the collection
of various jungle fruits, roots, bark, and honey from
cavities in the rocks. They bury their dead, and after
the funeral erect in the burial-ground of the sept
to which the dead man belonged a memorial stone to
serve as an abode for the spirit. They are excellent
trackers of game, and some of them have recently
begun to do a little rude cultivation. Those of the
better class have a simple form of marriage ceremony ;
but the poorer members merely elope with their brides
to a distant jungle, and return home only after a child
has been born.
PLATE XXXIII.
PLATE XXXIV.
Photograph received from Mr. E. Thurston, CLE.
A KADIR, WITH CHIPPED TEETH, FROM
THE ANAIMALAI HILLS, MADRAS: PURE
DRAVIDIAN TYPE.
The Kadirs are a jungle tribe found in the Anaimalai
or Elephant Hills of Madras and other ranges extend-
ing southwards into the State of Travancore. They
are of short stature, with a dark skin and broad nose.
They are a happy people, living on the produce of the
forests where they reside. They are nomad in habit,
building neat huts at places which they temporarily
occupy ; good trackers and expert in the pursuit of
game ; wonderfully clever in climbing high trees, their
method of ascent closely resembling that of the
Dayaks of Borneo. They have a horror of cattle,
and will not touch the products of the cow. Their
reticence in regard to the disposal of the dead has
given rise to a legend that they eat the corpse. The
remarkable custom of chipping the teeth 'curiously
resembles that of th^ Jakuns of the Malay Peninsula.
The Kadirs chip all or some of the upper and lower
incisors into the form of a sharp-pointed, but not
serrated, cone. This is done by means of a chisel,
bill-hook, and file. Both sexes undergo the operation ;
it is said that it makes an ugly man or woman
handsome, and that a person who has not been
improved in this way has teeth and eats like a cow.
PLATE XXXIV.
PLATE XXXV.
From a Photograph received from Rai Bahadur
B. A. GUPTE.
A GROUP OF DOM BASKET-MAKERS FROM
BIHAR: MIXED DRAVIDIAN TYPE.
The Doms are a semi-nomadic tribe found in Bihar
and the adjoining districts of the United Provinces
of Agra and Oudh. One group of them, known as
Maghaiya, are habitual thieves and burglars. Other
sections are more or less settled, and live mainly by
making mats and baskets out of slips of bamboo.
Their social status is very low, because they eat beef,
pork, horse-flesh,' field-rats, and even the flesh of
animals which have died a natural death — all
abominations to orthodox Hindus. They act as
executioners, and at holy places lord it at the burning-
ground, because they alone can supply fire to light
the funeral pyre, and they must be heavily bribed
before they will permit the corpse to be cremated.
PLATE XXXV.
66"
74-^
82'
T'^CUrwesi:S'ms,7^Lith. Lcmdcm.
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